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Archive 1Archive 2

The purpose of this page

I have become somewhat concerned of late that otherwise legitimate images are being tagged for deletion under I6 as not having a rationale, when the rationale seems obvious. What I would like to propose is that we come up with, in some fashion, exactly what we expect to see on the description page. Sure, there may be extenuating issues, but for 99% of the non-free images (or at least the ones that we have any business using), we can come up with a list of 3 or 4 things we want to see.

This page is NOT a way to weasel around the new replaceability guidelines. Please don't try to turn it into such - if we are a free encyclopedia, we really don't need to be using the "I found it on the internet therefore it must be fair use" images.

I, for one, have no particular attachment to any particular requirement - what I did with the page and template is really intended just to be used as a starting point. I think we need to make it as simple as possible for any user to supply the required information, but I really have no attachment as to what that required information is.

Anyway ... please give this proposal your consideration and let's try to come up with some guidelines to make this thing easier. BigDT 22:50, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

I will be happy to support any fair use guidelines that allow the usage of legitimate press and promophotos of living persons until and unless a quality free substitute becomes available. Until and unless that issue is resolved, any fair use proposal will fail to deal with 90% of the problems that currently exist, and have caused me and numerous other legitimate contributors to cease loading any kind of images to Wikipedia whatsoever. I wish you the best of luck. Tvccs 01:45, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
That's exactly what I do not want to get into here. This guideline has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with promo photos. This guideline doesn't tell you what kinds of images you can use - it is only to assist in writing the fair use rationale. BigDT 02:06, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree, this is a fine idea and does not at all need to be that tied up with other debates. We need a place to explain to people what a good fair use rationale is. I personally would like a place to link "fair use rationale" when I'm explaining it to someone that isn't Help:Image page#Fair use rationale, which I consider to be a sort of description by 2 specific examples. If we can delete images because they have no rationale I think we can give a list of what a rationale should contain. This shouldn't be that hard. - cohesion 04:42, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
There's one huge problem with Help:Image page#Fair use rationale right now ... that text is over three years old. It predates our current image tags, CSD I6, and most of the fair use policy. So to an extent, this proposal is a recognition that it needs an update, but this is also something completely new - it is a firm set of requirements for a rationale that we as a community feel is a prima facia rationale, that is, one that can stand on its own and make the basic case that the image qualifies for fair use. BigDT 05:30, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Well then, if you wish to write a fair use rationale excluding the use of essentially all press and promophotos, that's your option. But if the various Wikipedia pages that are out there, some of which say you can use them, are not resolved and consolidated, the larger issue I pointed to above won't be addressed. I'm sure there are improvements that can be made to the "how to" of a fair use rationale, and perhaps some more detailed sample pages can be shown or pointed to. Tvccs 19:19, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
BigDT, this is a good idea that you suggested. I remember some times where I had to write rationals for images that are under fair use, I had writers block and tried to put something down. Now, with this, whenever I do use a fair use photo, this could work very well. I think this will come in handy with the folks at WP:FAC so they have a clear idea of what they can do. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 20:03, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
(reset)I like this idea generally, and think semi-boilerplate is the way to go. I'm not sure what "proportion" on work means, since generally you're using the entire image or whatnot, or it should be fairly obvious what proportion you are using. I'd also like to have some links to good examples. Images that have very good fair use rationale on the page that users could look at for examples. I'd also like to have "bad" examples. More than the invalid examples of "I got it off Google!", but ones where people tried, but they just didn't quite make the boat and explain why. Finding examples to use would be difficult (for me), but I think it would help to make this clear to new people and old people who are trying to improve their FUR (Fair Use Rationale). --MECU≈talk 21:21, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Some background

It's probably worth pointing out that Wikipedia:WikiProject Fair use was once largely devoted to getting fair use rationales standardised. Proceeding from the idea that there were not really that many classes of media that were allowable, the hope was that boilerplate could be written that would cover most of them. That's the purpose of things like {{albumcover}}, or {{movieposter}}, for instance. Of course, if the album cover is somehow being used in some other article, for instance in an article about the album cover designer, a rationale for that article is needed.

I suppose that it is true that we have largely moved away from this model, or never really got there ({{albumcover}} instructs users to write a full rationale). There remains no obvious reason to hand write a new rationale every instance in which an article about an album has an unfree image of that album's cover. If this was to be sorted out, much of our unfree content wouldn't need further attention to the rationale.

What's happened since we introduced WP:CSD I6 is that users have had to go through the extra hoop of writing something down that will avoid having their image flagged by OrphanBot as having no rationale. This has spawned an awful lot of nonsense fair use rationales, such as "This is from the country's government website and is therefore fair use", or "This is a picture of the person in the article and is therefore fair use" or "This image is fair use because no freely licensed image exists". The help needed in such cases is very rarely that a better fair use rationale is needed, mostly these images need deleting.

There certainly are cases where particular media meets the spirit behind Wikipedia:Fair use but they don't belong to one of the common classes of things that we typically claim it for, and a page to help guide the uploader into writing a sound rationale could certainly be helpful. I suggest, however, that we might want to re-examine the boilerplate idea, and we need to avoid giving the impression that meeting WP:FUC #1 / avoiding OrphanBot / responding to whatever the fair use argument of the month happens to be is the job of the rationale. Jkelly 20:41, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

  • I agree with a lot of what you are saying. One thing we could do with the template is have predefined parameters, eg, {{Fair use rationale|purpose=1|replaceability=3}} that would allow the user to create a good portion of the rationale without having to retype everything on every page. The concern I was hearing when I brought this up on the WP:CSD talk page is that some users didn't feel that the rationale was the same or obvious for, say, every logo. So by having a template with choices, we have a rationale there, but we also keep someone who isn't a copyright expert from having to come up with something from scratch for each image. BigDT 20:48, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok ... so let's kick off the discussion:

I offer two questions to try and jumpstart discussion on the proposal ...

What's missing?

  • Question 1: What should be included in the rationale that I did not include? What should not be included, or should be optional, that I did include? BigDT 20:43, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
    • One important thing that's missing is that our usage must not compete with the copyright holder's usage. An image taken from a website that provides encyclopedic material, or for instance, a screenshot from a documentary film used to illustrate that film's subect (among many other cases) would compete with the copyright holder's usage and would not be permitted. --RobthTalk 01:46, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
      Good idea ... I have added that to the first part of the criterion ... feel free to revise. As I said before, I have no real attachment to what we approve - I just think we need something. BigDT 23:45, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
Another thing that I think is important is that fair use rationales should often be fairly explicit and unique. I think we need to point out that we need more than just a generic rationale, and need something that is supported by the text in the article and even by the image caption in the article. I've noticed for example, a lot of film articles will use 3 or 4 screenshots, which I think is fine, but they often have identical fair use rationales. (ie it's low resolution, it doesn't disadvantage the copyright holder etc). So by that rationale, if a film has 3 million shots, any one of the 3 million could be used. I think it needs at least one sentence/point in the rationale that says something like "this image is important to the article because it depicts (describe what it depicts) and this is important in understanding the subject because (explain why it adds to the article). Things like album covers, book covers etc are fair enough - they are generally accepted as identifying the topic, but some of the others really look like decoration and when so many rationales are just copy and pastes without any thought - well, to me I think they are totally worthless. We may as well not even bother. I've seen copies and pastes that aren't even logical such as a screenshots of a solo performer that have things like "public domain images of this band are not available" etc. So if an article is going to use images, it should be clear why those particular images are used. I'm in favor of the guideline but I think it still allows for people to follow a certain set of rules, fill in the blanks and "justify" the use of their image, without necessarily thinking critically about the image or explaining why it's relevant. Rossrs 09:31, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Boilerplate text?

  • Question 2: Do we want any boilerplate text to be available or should everything be completely user-entered?
    • As an example, for "replaceability", we could allow the user to choose from choices like:
      • "None - the image is a screenshot, logo, or box art, or a photograph which itself is iconic (ie, Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima) and no such thing as a free replacement could ever exist"
      • "Extremely unlikely - the image is a photograph of a one-time event used to identify or describe that one-time event and though someone else might have had a camera there, the chances are extremely unlikely"
      • "Difficult - the photo is of a deceased individual, reclusive individual, band, or other organization that has disbanded and is not likely to be available for another photo"
      • "Inconvenient - the photo is of a living person or object still in existence. Please note that this image will likely be deleted as it does not meet WP:FU criterion #1."
    • As a second example, we could allow the user to choose for "purpose" between, "primary identification of the article subject", "illustration of a particular paragraph or subtopic", etc.
    • In both cases, providing the boilerplate text would allow us to further categorize images for the purpose of patrolling them and finding invalid examples of fair use. On the flip side, if we provide boilerplate text, then inexperienced users may be inclined to just pick something, even if it doesn't apply. Any thoughts on this issue? BigDT 20:43, 18 December 2006 (UTC)


While I personally love complex templates, I think user entered is the way to go here. Otherwise I think you will have a system more complex and confusing for people than we have now. I mean, we could have some variables, and have them all plug in nicely, but there are people who think that things like {{albumcover}} simply are not fair use rationals. I personally would like to see more of a rationale than the simple template as well. So, having some clear instruction, and a template for formatting would be best. It may have some parsing to make sure there are key parameters entered, and maybe offer some help if there isn't one, but beyond that I think it will become too confusing and never be adopted. - cohesion 04:33, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Opposition?

Is there any strong opposition to making this a guideline at this point? I would like it simply as a place to point to to help people make the rationales, not binding, but informative. - cohesion 01:25, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Speedy deletion criterion I6

Images uploaded after May 4, 2006 that contain no rationale whatsoever should be speedy deleted 7 days after notice is given.
  • Just a technicality, but this sentence should say it only applies to image used under fair use. GFDL images don't contain fair use rationales and as it is phrased now, that would make them deletable for not having a fair use rationale... - Mgm|(talk) 13:08, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Yep, of course :) I changed it. I don't think the plan is to ever make this policy though, just a guideline. - cohesion 13:41, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
  • For my 2 cents, I liked the fact that this section includes (at present) a request that editors try to complete the fair use rationale rather than just deleting it. Too many Wikipedians have itchy delete-trigger fingers. 23skidoo 03:29, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Upgrade from proposal

I saw where Angr upgraded this page to a guideline. I have redirected Wikipedia:Fair use rationale here (it was going to a help page with extremely outdated information that predates most of our current fair use policy) and I have added a copy of the template here.

There are still a few things that should probably be finalized. Should anything be added or removed from the template? Should some of the text be revised? We probably want to get the template pretty close to its final form before people start using it without substing (otherwise, there could be orphaned parameters). --BigDT 03:48, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Mgm's view

This proposal makes perfect sense. It forces people to think about fair use in the right way. We should probably get the template pre-loaded for newbies and all that. But it should definitely be included and made into a guideline to get this started. - Mgm|(talk) 13:25, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Question: CD/DVD/TV captures

Hope that this is the right place to post this (sorry if it is not).
With captures - are we allowed to reproduce on wikipedia if they a referenced back to the website and are we allowed to "cut" and use the image? Or is this considered not a "rationale guideline" usage. -- Zarief 20:49, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

This page is more for discussing how to write the rationale, not what images qualify for fair use. The page you are looking for is Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. However, to answer your question, a TV/DVD screenshot is fine if the subject of the article is the TV program itself or the DVD itself. It is not acceptable, however, if the article is about trees and the DVD happens to show a picture of some trees. The key is whether or not a free version could be produced. If we are talking about Captain Kirk, no free image of Captain Kirk can ever be produced - it would be a derivative work of the real thing. So you can use a screenshot of Captain Kirk from a Star Trek episode. But if you are talking about something that exists outside of the TV show that the TV show just so happens to be about - even if that something is really, really hard to come by - that's not allowed. Does that help? --BigDT 21:00, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale/doc

Since this really is just instructions for how to use Template:Fair use rationale, I've converted Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline into a template documentation page for the said template. -- Ned Scott 04:54, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Ehh, I kinda like guidelines being in wikipedia namespace. Also this move has created cross namespace redirects and double redirects. Open to other opinions though of course. - cohesion 22:06, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree. If anything, it should be expanded. There's a very real problem that a lot of people who want to do the right thing don't have a clue what goes into a fair use rationale. We need to be trumpeting this guideline from the rooftops, not hiding it as template documentation. --BigDT 04:05, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
Ok, unless there are objections I'm moving it back, it's not really directions on how to use this particular template as much as it's what needs to go into a rationale. Whether people want to use this template or not doesn't matter. (also there are issues of the broken redirects etc) - cohesion 20:27, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
I have moved it back. The guideline needs to be in WP space. If we are going to delete images that don't have a fair use rationale, we need a guideline telling what the fair use rationale is - not just template instructions.
Cross-namespace is only a bad then when it's crossing with the article namespace. This isn't a guideline, it's instructions on how to use a specific template. Very little users even knew about this being discussed. Instructions have already existed before this was made at WP:IDP#Fair use rationale. -- Ned Scott 00:22, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
The instructions at WP:IDP#Fair use rationale predate boilerplate fair use tags. It is from about four years ago and image use policy has evolved a good deal since then. The whole reason for this guideline is that sometime late last year, images started being deleted for not having rationales when really they had rationales, but nobody knew what was required for a rationale to be sufficient to survive I6. It used to be that anything other than {{Non-free fair use in}} was itself sufficient rationale to survive speedy deletion. But then, the language of I6 was changed with the intent of including {{Non-free fair use in2}}, {{Non-free fair use in3}}, etc, but started to be misinterpreted as including any boilerplate template. It .should. include {{promophoto}}, {{historicphoto}}, and other questionable ones like that, but {{screenshot}} and {{logo}} really say about all you can say on the subject. Anyway, I digress. The purpose of this guideline is that I6 had become a moving target and there needs to be SOMETHING that specifies exactly what text is needed to meet the standard. If we are going to delete things for not having a rationale, then somewhere, somehow, it needs to be written down exactly what must be there for an image to not be deleted. If the guideline is inadequate, then be bold and improve it, but don't relegate it somewhere that nobody is ever going to see it. --BigDT 01:19, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure I follow you. When I upload images I simply follow the instructions on WP:FUC and WP:IDP#Fair use rationale, and no one has deleted my images (unless orphaned or no longer needed). Normally we avoid adding additional pages like this because it creates instructions creep. Transclusion might solve this problem, though. -- Ned Scott 05:35, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
Looking more at it, I think we should just merge what's on here to WP:IDP. WP:CSD#I7 can delete an image within 48 hours with a fair use rational, but if missing source or other info for the image description page. -- Ned Scott 05:38, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
Ah, looking even closer I'd say we should merge that stuff to here. An interesting trick is being used on the page, and the real content is at Template:Ph:Image page. The reason for this, I assume, is because the page is synced with a copy from meta, and the transclusion allows for "local" instructions. -- Ned Scott 05:43, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
I gave it a go at merging. Also, this page now transcludes to WP:IDP, which takes care of my instructions creep concern. -- Ned Scott 06:02, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
Seems good to me. Added benefit that the guideline can be updated here and get transcluded around town rather than in the obscure place it was before. - cohesion 18:05, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Scope

I agree this probably shouldn't be considered a guideline since it has had so little community input. At the same time, it is not just directions on how to use a single template. We need a place that instructs people what should be in a fair use rationale. We have to tell people all the time that they have to have one, yet there is very little instruction about what should be included. The fact that a template has been made to simplify the process is not central to the need for this page. - cohesion 00:46, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

"Feel"ings

Can we stop with the "feel" business in rationales please? Feelings are what you discuss with your SO, not a legal justification for anything. Stan 15:09, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, the fact that it's your opinion is implied when you add the rationale. I went ahead and removed it. - cohesion 19:50, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
Would "believe" be better? Not that it matters much, since it's just example text. -- Ned Scott 05:53, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

changed sample rationale

I've changed the sample rationale for "historic photographs" ([1]), because I think it was misleading and has done a lot of harm:

  1. It was poor english ("very historically significant to the general public")
  2. Fair use claims established in this way would almost never be valid. Simply showing a significant event is definitely not a valid fair use criterion, (much less simply "showing the subject of the article"), and the suggestion that a photograph can in itself show "how" an event was significant is rather bizarre.
  3. This text or fragments of it were forever being copied verbatim into image pages and misused to justify the most outrageous of fair use violations. Basically, it was suggesting that just about any old photograph could be used (any old photograph is unique and unrepeatable, since you can't turn time back; any old photograph can be argued to be connected to some "significant and unique event", etc. The worst was all those uploaders who shortened it to "adds significantly to the article because it shows the subject of the article".)

I've replaced it with a sentence stressing that the photograph is significant enough to be itself the object of discussion in the article. That, I think, is a useful rule of thumb that can help establishing actually valid fair use claims in a fairly large number of those cases which the "historic photograph" tag is intended. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:21, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Making a guideline

Are there any objections to making this a guideline and removing the proposal tag? - cohesion 00:40, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes. I object. Yes, it's a somewhat late objection, but it's one thats driven by the perfect clarity of hindsight.
The practice of mindlessly demanding rationales is clearly causing harm. People are providing garbage rationals for images we shouldn't be keeping, just to appease the bots. For the enormous number of images which do clearly fit our policies, the demand for an unique rational is an enormous burden which few users seem actually willing to tolerate.
The only 'benefit' I can see from this guideline as standing is that it has made the addition of non-free images more difficult. The same goal could be achieve with less negative side effects if we instead demanded users to find a unique 14 digit prime number to include on the image page.
Of course, we wouldn't do that ... our goal is to make sure that the fair use claims we have are valid, not to make life hard on our users. Neither the prime number demand nor this policy would really do much to increase the validity of the fair use claims on our images. --Gmaxwell 13:59, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Rationale should contain citation to reliable source?

Since all information in Wikipedia should be attributed to reliable sources, and fair use images are for critical commentary (in my opinion at least), would it be a good idea for all fair use rationales to contain a citation to a reliable source (thus establishing credible critical commentary). I imagine in the article the citation would be reused in the image caption (and all fair use images should have a caption since they are for critical commentary). For example if you could find a reliable source describing an album cover as "a revolution in cover design due to its psychedelic nature" then it would be ok to use as fair use in Wikipedia, but if no reliable source could be found describing the album cover then it could not be used.--Commander Keane 06:22, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

This is an intriguing idea, I don't think I've heard anyone with it before. Some images though, like user created photographs of 3 dimensional public art are fair use, but still user created. It may be difficult to get a RS citation for the image, although you of course could get one for the subject. - cohesion 01:31, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
Yes. I've seen a lot of bogus rationales on the lines of "This is a historicaly significant image of a famous individual"... and still no reference to what made this image "historicaly significant". Such image should have won a prize or caused some controversy... it's easy to prove that a historicaly significant image is historicaly significant. But, as we didn't used to ask for this statement to be sourced, this became heavily abused. I, for one, have seen it being used even in living people headshots.
And sometimes, the article goes in original research statements explaining how this image was particularly important to this and that... We have to always cite our sources, and fair use rationales are not an exception. --Abu badali (talk) 15:22, 30 April 2007 (UTC)--Abu badali (talk) 15:22, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Whoa... I'm not sure about that. Citing sources applies to the article space, and images are basically exempt from the NOR policy. Λυδαcιτγ 02:16, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree that free images are exempt from the No Original Research policy, but I don't think fair use images are. As an example about how useful reliable sourcing would be: if you were allowed original research on movie screenshots, you could include 30 in an article, with appropriate critical commentary (that you thought up). But if you had to provide a reliable source for each screenshot, you are limited to shots that have been discussed in magazines/books. There may be exceptions to the reliable sourcing requirement, eg the case cohesion has mentioned about the 3d art photos (and maybe the community would decide that company logos and movie posters are exempt).--Commander Keane 04:24, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
I think allowing only fair use images that have been discussed already would 1) greatly cut down on the number of such images, and 2) reduce our editorial leeway too much. I'd rather allow the images that work best with a particular article; the use of images seems to me an editorial decision, analogous to the titling of articles. Λυδαcιτγ 23:26, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
Yeah on second thoughts you are probably right about it being an editorial choice. Indeed I would like to see a great reduction in fair use images and the citation idea would help that, but since there is objection I will drop it.--Commander Keane 03:40, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Note on what to do about lack of rationale on old images

I added the following text because someone was confused and asking about precisely this issue:

If the image is clearly an abuse, remove the image from the article and mark as orphaned fair use with {{subst:orfud}}, notifying the uploader per that template.

- David Gerard 16:44, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

What kind of abuse? You might end up with people just relinking in that case. Would {{No rationale}} handle the cases you're talking about? There is also {{Replaceable fair use}}, but that is more specific. - cohesion 02:22, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
I think he's refering to "grandfathered" images uploaded before May 4 2006. The {{no rationale}} criteria explicitly does not apply to those... --Sherool (talk) 21:53, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

What's the point?

According to this page, "This justification will help other users determine if the 'fair use' could apply to a wide variety of uses or a narrow range of uses. It will also help determine if the given claim of fair use is appropriate for Wikipedia in the first place." Really? I'd expect that anyone reasonably familiar with fair use would be able to determine these things for themselves. Why would they need "help"? Does anyone even read these rationales? It's interesting that when images are deleted for reasons pertaining to rationales, it's usually because the rationale is missing, not because the rationale—actual or potential—is invalid. Users can write whatever they feel like in their rationale; it doesn't matter what it says, just as long as it's there.

I think fair use rationales serve no purpose and create unnecessary maintenance. Rather than expecting users to write rationales in advance for every image, it would be more reasonable to expect them to write a rationale when it's necessary. When their image is listed on images for deletion, the uploader can provide their rationale there. When someone questions the fairness of an image in an article, the uploader can provide a rationale on the talk page. For cases where people might be tempted to challenge the image repeatedly, formal rationales—written in numbered steps like now—can be provided on the image description page as a summary of previous debates.

It would be no different than how notability issues are handled. We don't require notability rationales for every single article in advance—they're provided when necessary. Someone challenges the notability of the subject of an article and nominates it for deletion; rationales are provided for or against the notability of the subject; consensus determines the fate of the article. Why aren't non-free images treated the same way? Punctured Bicycle 01:00, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

"We don't require notability rationales for every single article in advance" Actually, we do. WP:CSD#A7. --tjstrf talk 01:21, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
I don't know about this. I understand that it is a bit of a hassle, but I do find rationales useful when doing image-related maintainence chores. For instance, look at this image here. A careless admin would delete it as a depiction of a living person- whereas the picture is actually intended to depict a historic event, rather than the image of the person (as explained in the rationale). Yes, I could come to the same conclusion by doing some research, asking the uploader etc. but it doesn't seem fair for me to have to go through all this trouble when the uploader could have just spent a moment or two and written a rationale, saving me the trouble. Given the enormous image deletion/tagging/etc. backlogs, I think we should strive in the direction of making things easier for the people handling the backlogs rather than the people who upload fair use images. Borisblue 01:38, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Often a rationale should not be necessary. For example, current company logos are pretty standard fair use. Yet the Wikimedia Foundation has decided in their licensing policy to require rationales not only for fair use images, but for every non-free image we host. —Remember the dot (talk) 02:14, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Your example is a perfect illustration of my suggestion. The image was challenged, the issue was discussed, then a formal rationale was provided. Contrast with the present policy, where every single non-free image must have a rationale in advance—pretty much handwritten by the uploader every time—even for common, clear-cut cases like company logos as Remember the dot points out. Punctured Bicycle 02:25, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Much of the reasoning for this is that people don't fully understand Wikipedia:Non-free_content#Images. Notice particularly that logos are permitted simply for identification, but cover art, posters, ads, screenshots, and visual art require not just identification, but critical commentary. A good fair-use rationale will outline what sort of critical commentary requires the use of the image. Indeed, the fair-use rationale in those cases must demonstrate that the image itself is a subject of part of the article; for example, an article about a CD should only contain an image of the cover if there is commentary on the cover design or its relevance in relation to something else. I know this is not the norm around here, but that is because of lazy enforcement of rules, not because the rules are (a) incorrect or (b) recently changed. (ESkog)(Talk) 02:21, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Requiring fair use rationales doesn't solve the problem of people not understanding the policy. Rather, it encourages people create nonsense rationales. Writing "the image is used for critical commentary" doesn't prove the image is used for critical commentary. All it proves that you are able to copy and paste or make up stuff that you don't fully understand. Punctured Bicycle 02:38, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
You make a fair point, and more people should probably be in the business of challenging fair-use rationales. I know that when I am clearing through large backlogs of images, it's simply easier for me to tag 300 images which have no rationale than to read the rationales of just a handful. I'll try to do a better job of examining those too, but I know there are likely other admins who feel the same way. Would it help if we had some standard fair-use review process, or some other way of organizing that gargantuan task? (ESkog)(Talk) 02:55, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Do you mean something like Wikipedia:Fair use review? ShadowHalo 04:46, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, that would work. So it exists, but is pretty under-used... (ESkog)(Talk) 11:50, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
But why add this extra layer of maintenance? Fair use review shouldn't be the place to challenge rationales on the image description page; it should be a place to provide rationales for non-free images to begin with, when images themselves happen to be challenged. Punctured Bicycle 16:12, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
The problem with that is that each image's rationale is (or should be) unique. A user who uploads 150 images with the same rationale is sorely misunderstanding our policies. I don't think there is a good solution for users who refuse to add the rationale to their own images. (ESkog)(Talk) 16:27, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Why must each rationale be unique? For example, won't all album covers have the same rationale? Λυδαcιτγ 20:24, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
No. Even if you scanned a dozen album covers by the same band yourself and were just using each of them in the article about the individual album, you would at least need to change the album name from one rationale to the next. ~ BigrTex 20:36, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
This could be accomplished with a template and a single parameter, but I suspect that still wouldn't be acceptable to the policy enforcers. DHowell 01:34, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
The uploader's knowledge of our policies is irrelevant for determining whether a fair use claim is appropriate. They can be dead and buried for all we know; it won't change the legitimacy of a non-free image they uploaded three years ago. We don't need users to "put it in their own words" to demonstrate that they understand policy. We understand policy and can make the determination for ourselves. Again, who really reads these things? The use for rationales stated at the top of this guideline is simply false. They don't help us—what they do is create more backlogs. My proposal would solve both the problems you mentioned:
  1. Don't require formal rationales in advance.
  2. Have users supply informal rationales if an image is challenged on talk pages, deletion discussions, fair use review, etc.
  3. For controversial cases like the one Borisblue pointed out (which might be challenged again in the future), we can recommend supplying a formal rationale on the image description page, to summarize the findings of the debates. If users can predict their upload will be controversial, we can recommend supplying a formal rationale in advance. Punctured Bicycle 21:44, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I actually find writing unique rationales for images somewhat fun, though I may be the only one who thinks that. It's necessary for GA-class anyway, so if you're aiming for that you'll need to add them eventually. That aside, a compelling practical reason to write a fair use rationale early in the life of the image rather than just adding it when/if the image is challenged is that you may not be there when the challenge takes place. What if you're on vacation or Wikibreak? What if the challenge hits during finals? What if you weren't the original uploader and you just don't notice the change on your watchlist? 5 days is not a lot of time to miss, especially if you're only a casual editor rather than part of the obsessive insomniac crew.

Remember, lots of perfectly useful images are uploaded by newbies, but since they know nothing about image policy they're deletable on 4 or 5 technical counts due to not having the proper details. Those of us who do have a clue about the image policies then have to fix it for them. I have a couple hundred images on my watchlist for this reason despite the number of images I am the original uploader for being countable on 1 hand. While it may be tedious and irritating, by writing the rationales, sourcing, and tagging these image preemptively you can avoid problems later. --tjstrf talk 22:03, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

The uploader doesn't have to be there. Others can provide reasons—for or against the image—in their absence. Their reasons don't carry more weight just because they happened to upload the image. Requiring rationales preemptively only avoids problems born from the requirement itself: a backlog of images without rationales and nagging from bots to add them. Eliminate the requirement, and the problems vanish. Punctured Bicycle 23:50, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
The uploader doesn't have to be there, yes, but someone does. For pages that are not high traffic, if you aren't there the image will probably be deleted due to lack of response. --tjstrf talk 23:56, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
At the very least, the nominator and the deleting admin are there. If the nominator's reasons for deleting the image are compelling and the admin herself cannot think of reasons for keeping the image—that is, cannot provide an informal rationale—then the image will be deleted. Lots of images are rightly deleted despite lack of response. Punctured Bicycle 00:10, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

"Fair use" is an exception granted to the 3º pillar of Wikipedia, wich is of it being made with free content, and as such an explanation must be given about why such an exception should be made. Fair use is not a "for whatever that is protected by copyright" resource Perón 23:01, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

It should just be possible to explain why such an exception should be made; we shouldn't have to actually explain each case in advance. Once again, writing "An exception should be made for this image because..." doesn't prove an exception should actually be made for that image. An image either belongs or it doesn't, regardless of what the user writes in their rationale—so why make them write it? Punctured Bicycle 23:46, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Because, unlike the plain text and commands we use to make the articles, the images (all of them) are not done with tools provided by Wikipedia. They are done outside of it, and so it must be proved that they fit the conditions to be used.
It's true, just a reason is not enough, it must be a good reason. An image with a bad reason to be used despite of having copyright should be deleted, but the thing better than a bad reason is a good reason, not a lack of reason. In fact, a lack of reason is indeed worse than a bad reason. Perón 01:21, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm not arguing that we don't need good reasons. I'm arguing we don't need to write the reasons down on every image description page in order for the image to be acceptable. The image is acceptable or unacceptable independent of what is written on the image description page; good rationale, bad rationale, no rationale—none affect whether the image is in fact acceptable. Punctured Bicycle 01:35, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
But how are we supposed to tell them apart if no reason is given? You can't expect to upload an image and let an administrator (anyone else, for that matter) to be able to tell where have you taken it from. Is it a photo from a big newspaper the editor doesn't read? Is it a photoshop set up? Is it a page of an important comic book? Is it fan art? Is it a photo of the famous man you took a time you have encountered him? Is it a photo of the famous man you found in his home page, or it was at a magazine and someone scaned it and uploaded it to his own page? No, others can not do that, you overestimate their hability. It is you (meaning, the uploader) who must explain it all about the image Perón 02:46, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
We're discussing fair use rationales, not sources. Punctured Bicycle 02:52, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
The source (the real source, not the web page, usually it's not the same) is an integral part of the rationale. Perón 12:30, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
No, it's an integral part of the source section. Punctured Bicycle 21:01, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

To confirm any listed rationales, a person will have to check each linked article and determine whether or not it's being used in a manner simpatico with Wikipedia's "fair use". If all instances qualify, this user has just wasted his time; if all instances do not, the list of rationales hasn't helped any, only the 'File links' list.

I doubt there ever could be, but even if there were some entity everyone would trust enough should they proclaim "I looked at the pages that use it, and all the rationales given are accurate", it would take continuous surveillance to keep such a claim accurate, and doing so would still of course have little to do with a list of rationales.

The process of determining whether or not an image's use qualifies as Wikipedia's "fair use" is the same with and without a list of rationales.

This guideline is redundant, impractical, useless. ¦ Reisio 02:01, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Since this guideline seems disputed mostly because it is used by policy, that may be the more appropriate place for this discussion: Wikipedia_talk:Non-free_content#Fair_use_rationale. ¦ Reisio 05:13, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Too big fair use images

I have found some images that fit all the proper requirements for being acceptable as fair use, except that they were not provided in small resolution. I took an image, corrected it's size, and use the "upload a new version of this file", wich lead me to an image upload screen. Before making a mess, I stopped. If I upload such an image under the same name of the image to replace, does all the information and rationale present in the article remain, or should I copy and paste it all for the new one as it was brand new? Perón 13:13, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

No information on the image description page will change when you upload a new file over an existing one. --Iamunknown 00:25, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Template:Non-free media rationale

I think Template:Non-free media rationale is going to cause more problems than it will solve. First of all, I don't think a properly composed fair use rationale can necessarily be boiled down to a few bullet points. More importantly, this template doesn't even address the degree to which the use competes with the owner's sale of the media. And it also does not force the user to review the guidelines on fair use rationales, so it gives the user a false sense of security that one or two word responses to a few questions will qualify their uploaded media for use here.

Any thoughts? --Butseriouslyfolks 04:55, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree, especially on the point of, "More importantly, this template doesn't even address the degree to which the use competes with the owner's sale of the media". I personally have not seen an adequate non-free use rationale composed with this template. --Iamunknown 05:04, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
I've added some more information to the template. The template now asks users to explain why rather than just saying "Yes" or "No". —Remember the dot (talk) 05:34, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
I think the improvements help. I also added a note to the title bar of the template asking users to read the project page over here before using the template. I think we should also clarify "Description". Are they supposed to be describing the media or how it's used? (I'd do it myself, but I'm not sure here.) --Butseriouslyfolks 06:23, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
They definitely need to describe the character of the use. A good image description page will also describe the image, but that is not necessary from the rationale standpoint. (ESkog)(Talk) 14:59, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Necessity of signature

Do we really need to have the person writing the fair use rationale sign their name? Wouldn't this discourage others from improving the rationale? Isn't the person who uploads the image ultimately responsible for it, not the person who writes the rationale? —Remember the dot (talk) 18:03, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

No signature should be required. It's in the history like every other edit users make. --Butseriouslyfolks 19:22, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Album covers, movie posters, book covers

Okay, can we be a little more realistic with these? We know they're fair use in articles about them, we know we want legitimate rationales - can we stop being stupid about these and start recognizing that these are fair use in those articles and simply let the boilerplate stand, and allow for individual challenges based on necessity? --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:00, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Even the best album cover rationale ever will simply be a restatement of the album cover tag with a couple extra words thrown in. There's no reason we can't have a templated rationale for these, whether it's separate from or a part of the default license tag.
Barring that, we could at least go put {{shrubbery}} on the talk page of anyone who tags one as lacking a rationale. --tjstrf talk 17:18, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
If you can create a templated rationale for these, then please do it. I've heard a bunch of people on both sides of this issue and perhaps if someone actually tried we'd find out what it would take and whether or not it would be possible. Should I add {{sofixit}} to your talk page?
To address Badlydrawnjeff's point, it is not clear to me that these examples are fair use in articles about the album/movie/book. Based on Wikipedia:Non-free content#Images,
  • Cover art: Cover art from various items, for identification and critical commentary (not for identification without critical commentary)
  • Other promotional material: Posters, programs, billboards, ads. For critical commentary.
it appears that movie posters are specifically not fair use in the movie article, and album/book covers are only fair use if the article on the album/book provides 'critical commentary' about the cover. Sadly, critical commentary appears to be completely missing from WP:FURG. ESkog does talk about it in his essay User:ESkog/Rationales#"Critical Commentary".
It is clear to me that this is not how fair use is currently being enforced for these items. I'm not saying that I agree with either side on this. I'm not even saying I really understand it. ~ BigrTex 18:02, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
Everyone should have {{sofixit}} on their talk page.
If the image is being used to identify the subject of the article, and the subject of the article is subject to critical commentary in the article, then the critical commentary requirement is met for that image. Company logos, album covers, movie posters, etc. are being used as a representation of their company, album, or movie, and it is the represented subject that needs to be discussed. Otherwise Image:PinkFloyd-album-piperatthegatesofdawn.jpg couldn't be justified for use as an identifying image outside of the article The cover of the Pink Floyd album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. --tjstrf talk 18:20, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
My understanding is that Image:PinkFloyd-album-piperatthegatesofdawn.jpg could be used on The Piper at the Gates of Dawn if the article contained critical commentary on the cover - talked about the kaleidoscopic effect, the artist, or something - in terms of the band, time period, etc.
Then again, my understanding is that Image:PinkFloyd-album-piperatthegatesofdawn.jpg is being used in 12 articles and should have a separate rationale for each of those uses, including the source/description/etc in each one. Needing the source in each one doesn't make sense - needing the source at all doesn't make sense since we require it of all images. Needing a reason why it's use in Syd Barrett meets WP:NFCC does make sense to me.
At least there are plenty of conversations about rationales happening now, so perhaps an expert will appear that will make the nuances clear to all of us, but it hasn't happened yet. ~ BigrTex 18:55, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
I've offered a very rudimentary one at User:Badlydrawnjeff/fur that's really only useful for a) my image uploads, and b) image uploads where I know they're from Amazon. But even then, the source info on these types of media is never going to be complete, and is rarely accurate - who the copyright holder is on an album cover is irrelevant to our needs, it has to do with who has distribution rights, which differs from country to country, source to source, and would never be questioned anyway. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:51, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
My boilerplate one (change source/artist/album) can be seen on Image:Outtacontrol.jpg[2] (most recent one that I added), but I have no confidence that it would stand up to scrutiny, nor that it actually meets the guidelines. ~ BigrTex 18:59, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
I want to agree with the original poster and suggest that instead of User:BetacommandBot spamming out CSD messages that we first have a round of encouragement of "please add rationales to your images or put a CSD tag on them if they don't meet the new requirements. Then anything uploaded after X date can be CSDed for no rationale with these tags but... we have tens of thousands of these images and they will be deleted more quickly than rationales can be added if we keep this up... and most are completely fair use. gren グレン 16:42, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I added a rationale. What now?

I added a fair-use rationale to Image:IBMExploreWikipedia20040224.png but it still is in Category:Screenshots of software with missing fair-use rationale. How do I remove it? --Error 00:31, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

|image_has_rationale=yes. Done. --Error 00:42, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Name change to "Non-free media rationale guideline"

I was thinking maybe we should change the name of this guideline and the references from "fair use rationale" to "non-free media rationale". The rationale isn't just about proving the fair use US laws, but our own additional requirements. Thoughts? -- Ned Scott 08:59, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

  • I couldn't agree more. Under the current interpretation, a picture of a 40-year-old 45 RPM single in a picture sleeve, say many of the Beatles' or Four Seasons' singles, would appear to be impermissibile. Similarly one can posit that a picture of the single itself would be a violation without commentary on the construction of the vinyl, the label, and so forth as someone would point out that the piece of plastic has nothing to do with the music! B.Wind 16:56, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Regarding images that are very difficult to obtain free versions of

In The Bus Uncle, 3 of the images are under dispute regarding its replaceability. The argument was that since those 3 people are living, it will be possible for anyone to take a free photo of them in the future. But the problem is that, what are the individuals' willingness in having more pictures taken from them? It is reasonable to assume that the three individuals won't want to be disturbed, particularly by some Wikipedia editor. This makes it almost impossible for free images to be obtained, and one must use pictures from news reports and papers. Should the "Replaceability" guideline be a bit more lenient towarsd such cases? It won't be very fair that those images are removed because it is out of a Wikipedian's ability to satisfy the requirement.--Kylohk 11:21, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

  • If these actors appear in public, their photo can be taken (in most cases). No special permission is needed from them as they have no expectation of privacy. While they are alive, this remains the case. Thus, they are replaceable. --Durin 15:34, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
    • There is another problem. Even if they appear in public, the average editor won't know exactly where he is at any given time. Any contact in public must occur by chance. Which means that the free photo is very difficult to obtain, even if it is replaceable, since it is hard to track down a specific person in a city.--Kylohk 18:37, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
      • The problem with Durin's take on this is that they theoretically state the photo is replacable, but in reality that has yet to be demonstrated. It can only be demonstrated once a free picture has in fact been obtained. (Mind meal 08:26, 7 June 2007 (UTC))

Disputed: album cover advice

I have put a disputed tag on the album cover advice, because I think it gives a wrong perception both of the policy balance as regards album covers, and of the consensus understanding of that policy at Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums.

Specifically, in this context it is sufficient that the image is a thumbnail, and it is being used to identify work which is the subject of the article's criticism or review. It is the work as a whole (or body of work, in the case of a discography article) that is relevant, and must be the topic under discussion in the article, not the image.


This standard (reflected in Template:Albumcover) is different to the standard required for eg presenting a detail of a copyright work of art.

The difference derives from (to use the terminology of Judge Posner in Ty Inc vs Publications International before the Seventh Circuit) the complementary rather than substitutive nature of including the thumbnail in the critical or review article. The exist6ence of a good encyclopedia article including a thumbnail image is likely to be a positive, rather than negative, factor for awareness and sales of the album. (Appropriately limited) use of elements of the work in the derived work are therefore likely to be economically complementary to the original, rather than substitutive.

The use of thumbnails specifically was considered by the Ninth Circuit of Appeals in Perfect 10 vs Google, and accepted in the context of an appropriately transformative work. A critical or review article is something that would fall under that heading (in Google's case it was a page of search results).

Note that this is a very different standard than that required to establish fair use for a typical copyright photograph.

It is also a standard which should be rollable out as a boilerplate template rationale. Jheald 15:40, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Note that Durin's remarks were posted when only my first 2 paragraphs above were up, not the subsequent paragraphs setting out their more detailed justifcation.
The issue is not just that something is a thumbnail. This issue is that for Album coverart, and other Media product coverart, the use of that thumbnail to identify work which is the subject of the article's criticism or review is a complementary rather than a substitutive use. This is rationale will be standard for appropriately small thumbnails used in particular classes of articles, and that should be reflected in templated boilerplate text. Jheald 15:49, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
that might be the law but by foundation resolution we require more. if you disagree e-mail the board and ask them to change it. per foundation resolution this is non disputable. Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 15:55, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
No, the Foundation simply requires an "applicable rationale." What that is is certainly up for discussion and dispute. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:07, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
I think it is fine as is. (H) 16:13, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
The objection to our guideline here seems to be based on an argument in US law. Our guideline is compatible with US law, but is not limited to the letter or to any specific interpretation of it. --Tony Sidaway 16:18, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
No, the objection is that the guideline does not represent consensus, and should therefore be corrected. The point about U.S. law is that the U.S. law does not require a guideline this narrow, and if the guideline was written this narrowly in the view that that was the legal requirement, that thought was not correct. Jheald 16:29, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
And looking at the guideline again, I don't think my view of what is sufficient to qualify an album cover thumbnail as fair use does conflict with the boundaries drawn by the policy. In particular, the paragraph in "Necessary components" which sets out examples of what kind of purpose is appropriate: "Is the image a logo, photograph, or box art for the main subject of the article? Is the image being used as the primary means of visual identification of the subject or topic? (eg, a corporate logo, DVD box art)". The wording of the guideline at that section strongly implies that those are sufficient. That should be reflected in the cover art template -- which absolutely should be giving standard text, if the use is absolutely standard. So it's the wording of the section on cover-art which I believe should be re-written, to more accurately reflect the policy. Jheald 16:56, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Disputed tag

I've removed the "disputed" tag because the guideline as written is an accurate description of the policy as implemented on Wikipedia on a daily basis. We can certainly discuss whether what we're doing at present is wise, but it would be misleading to suggest that we don't, in fact, presently run the wiki as described. --Tony Sidaway 16:15, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Who is this royal we? Who are you claiming "runs the wiki"? There is not consensus on this point. WP:Albums run the album project, and their consensus does not match your opinion. Neither does the Album template. Nor does the de-facto use of probably 99% of album images on the wiki. I think that makes for manifest grounds for disputing that the current wording reflects consensus. Jheald 16:26, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

But you obviously do have the autority over it, don't you? Violask81976 18:34, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

This page doesn't set the rules, it just helps people to follow them. WP:ALBUM should take their beef up with WP:FUC or WP:NONFREE. -- Ned Scott 19:18, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Why? There isn't a problem with either of those pages. A standard fair use rationale for cover-art thumbnails on album article pages would be completely in line with both of them, both in letter and in spirit. The issue is with the album art example on this page, which goes beyond what is necessary. Jheald 19:42, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Protected

I've protected this page because of edit warring. Please discuss on the talk page. >Radiant< 16:22, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Why did you lock it? All that is is saying that because you say it's not disputed, it's not and nobody else is allowed to say that it is. Don't use your power to put your rules through. If you go to WP:ALBUM then you'll see many many people who disagree with your deletionist view. And yes that gets me tiffed. Violask81976 18:33, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Radiant protected the page because there was an ongoing revert war; the version of the page that he protected it at is, of course, the wrong version. --Iamunknown 18:35, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

This guideline conflicts with policy

See WP:FUC that reads:

Significance. Non-free media is not used unless it contributes significantly to an article. It needs to significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic in a way that words alone cannot.

This is incompatible with the wording about cover art in this guideline. 99% of all book covers and CD cover images are used to illustrate the article in a manner that does not contribute significantly. See for example Category:Cult_related_books ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 05:23, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

The "CD album cover art" is poorly written. "The image is itself a subject of discussion in the article" is very frequently false. As it (often) should be; what's there to say at Enta Da Stage? "Black Moon appears on the cover"? I suggest using the following:
# No free covers are available to illustrate the album.
# The image is low resolution.
# Copies could not be used to make illegal copies of the album artwork on another CD.
# It does not limit the copyright owner's rights to sell the CD album in any way.
# The cover has previously been published.
# The image contributes significantly to the article by identifying the subject of the article.
ShadowHalo 06:06, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
This makes sense. The justification for showing cover art is similar to the justification for showing logos on company pages. It allows easy recognition of the topic of the article. This has been somewhat controversial, but I think that's the current consensus. If no one objects, the cover art example should be changed to this more appropriate one. nadav (talk) 06:18, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
I think we have to be careful relying on consensus where copyright law is concerned. However, I agree that the above standard rationale makes sense, with a few caveats. Since there are still inappropriate uses of fair use album covers, I think the tag should state explicitly that it is not to be used in certain circumstances. Off the top of my head, galleries and non-article pages are prohibited for fair use images, so that should be stated. There should be a maximum resolution (not just "low"). It should also only be used in an article about the album or an article that discusses the album. I guess what I'm getting at is that instead of saying "you can use CD album covers in X situation", let's try "you can use CD album covers except in Y situation". --Butseriouslyfolks 06:49, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
This is just about changing the example of a rationale in the Non-template section. It's not about about changing any existing policies or guidelines. nadav (talk) 08:15, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Right. It has already been determined that album covers always (to the best of my knowledge) meet WP:NFCC for the article about the album. The last line, "identifying the subject of the article", means that the rationale could not be applied to, say, a discography since the album is not the subject of that article. It may still be a good idea to state that the example rationales are only for use in articles about the album/photograph. ShadowHalo 10:39, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Compare also this text, from the page for the Beatles' album Help: Image:HelpUK.jpg:

This image is a cover of the album Help! by The Beatles. Its inclusion here is claimed as fair use because:
* It illustrates educational articles about the album from which the cover illustration was taken.
* The image is used as the primary means of visual identification of the article topic.
* It is a low resolution image.
* The image is only a small portion of the commercial product.
* It is not replaceable with an uncopyrighted or freely copyrighted image of comparable educational value.
* The use of the cover will not affect the value of the original work or limit the copyright holder's rights or ability to distribute the original.
The use of the cover illustration is in good faith, and its inclusion enhances the quality of the article without reducing the commercial value of the recording from which it was drawn.

Alternatively, Wikipedia:WikiProject_Fair_use/Fair_use_rationale#Media covers has this suggestion:

For images labeled with {{albumcover}}, {{boardgamecover}}, {{bookcover}}, {{DVDcover}}, {{gamecover}}, {{magazinecover}}, {{TIME}}, and {{video tape cover}}.
Along with the general fair use rationale provided at the top of this page, covers of various media are thought to be "fair use" when used on Wikipedia to illustrate articles directly pertaining to the item of media in question, with reference to the fact that the image is a cover of a specific item of media. Along with the general rationale above, in these cases it is specifically thought because:
  1. The cover of the media is not the "content" specifically being sold by the publisher of the media, and does not pose a significant risk of defrauding the publisher (and in fact may encourage the increased legitimate sales of said media).
  2. Because the images are provided at a low resolution inappropriate for re-printing the media cover, their usage on Wikipedia does not pose a problem of aiding media piracy (the re-printing of covers to accompany with pirated discs or tapes, for example), or make it so that the copyright holder could not in the future successfully re-sell the image as a print or a poster.
  3. There are likely no "free" alternatives for the illustration of said copyrighted media which would not be themselves infringements on copyrights or trademarks. A low-resolution, correctly attributed image of the media itself, with its copyrighted status clearly indicated, is a better alternative than any other image, for Wikipedia's educational purpose.

Regarding discographies, I think usage in that context requires, in addition to the statements of its non-harm above, a specific statement of need eg:

  • This image is included as part of a survey of The Beatles' musical publications. Album covers represnt the primary means of visual identification of a band's work, and are an important aspect of its cultural contribution presence. These images therefore represent a significant contribution to the survey of the body of work, and contribute to significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic in a way that words alone cannot. The taking is appropriately limited to that required for the purpose, and no other substitute images would be appropriate.

This text could certainly be improved, but I offer it as a start. Jheald 13:42, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

A fair-use rationale doesn't just need to indicate why use of the fair-use image is better than "any other image". It also needs to indicate why the image is essential rather than decorative. For most CD covers and the like, I don't see why it is, unless the CD cover image was particularly renowned or controversial. Seraphimblade Talk to me 16:27, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Oy vey. The cover is an important part of any album. Also, covers are useful in helping a reader identify an album he may have seen or read about before. Getting rid of most album covers would be copyright paranoia to an extreme degree. Λυδαcιτγ 03:21, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
In an article about the album, it is clear that a picture of the cover should almost always be allowed for the same reason we currently allow logos on company articles, namely, visual identification. This guideline specifically and expressly allows that: "Is the image being used as the primary means of visual identification of the subject or topic? (eg, a corporate logo, DVD box art)". Are we trying to further limit fair use by eliminating visual identification as an acceptable interpretation of the significance criterion in WP:FUC? (I have no opinion, but do want to note that this would be a very drastic change) nadav (talk) 03:34, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Logos?

User:BetacommandBot keeps deleting logos from sports teams and universities, aren't logos automatically fair use? If not, how do I tag them so the bot stops deleting them. --AW 15:01, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Nothing is "automatically fair use". You need to add a fair use rationale to each one. This article discusses fair use rationales. Do you have any more specific questions about the instructions? Do you have a specific image that you'd like someone to review? ~ BigrTex 15:24, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I don't understand how to tag images. This and the logo page are confusing --AW 15:35, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Some logos on pages I'm watching that the bot tagged are Image:Jcu-logo.gif, Image:Tulsa66ers logo.jpeg, Image:NE Revolution logo.gif, Image:NatsBallparkLogo.gif, Image:Fenerbahce hqfl logo.png, Image:FFBB logo.GIF, all of which are sports teams or universities. --AW 15:38, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
To be more specific, Wikipedia:Logos has a template, but it says "this tag is meaningless without a fair use rationale." How do I put one, or know that something needs one? --AW 16:03, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
To answer your question: As to what needs one, every use of a fair-use image requires a fair-use rationale. If the image is used in more than one article, you must write a fair-use rationale for every article it is used in. As to what to put, you must include both why you believe the use of the image is acceptable under United States fair use law, and also why it is acceptable under Wikipedia's fair use policy (which is often stricter than the law.) Seraphimblade Talk to me 16:24, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
This is such a complicated policy. How would I say a logo of a sports team or university is fair use? --AW 16:53, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
You would want to, for example, state that the logo of the organization is a critical part of understanding that organization, that it serves more than a decorative purpose (for example, if the logo is discussed within the article, and a critical part of that discussion is that the reader is actually able to see the image), and that it otherwise passes fair-use criteria and law by being used for an educational purpose. However, the logos of sports teams, etc., are not always non-decorative and not always irreplaceable. If the logo is just there to have an "image in the infobox", but it's really not a crucial part of understanding the team or organization, it's probably decorative and should not be used. For a sports team, for example, a photo could always be taken at a game and released under a free-use license for an image in the infobox. When you're writing your rationale, think hard about why that wouldn't work acceptably well. (Not as well, necessarily, just good enough.) If you can't think why it wouldn't, the fair-use image is probably replaceable and decorative. Seraphimblade Talk to me 17:00, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. However, I think logos are pretty fundamental to the teams. People don't wear hats with the team photo on them, after all. They're how teams are identified. --AW 17:03, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
True. And most likely, you can generally demonstrate that the image is indeed necessary and irreplaceable in a lot of cases. But that doesn't relieve responsibility to actually do so. I would use something to the effect of:
  1. Use of the team's logo will not harm commercial opportunities to use the logo, and will not reduce or supplant demand for merchandise which makes use of it.
  2. The logo is low-resolution and would not be of suitable quality for the production of pirated merchandise. (Make sure this is actually true, of course.)
  3. A reasonable reader would not be confused into believing that the article is written or authorized by the team just because its logo is used.
  4. No free alternative exists or could be created.
  5. Team logos are widely published and available in digital form.
  6. A team's logo is a widely used mark of identification for the team and serves an educational purpose as part of the public image the team portrays. It is as identifiable and important as the team's name. Seraphimblade Talk to me 05:38, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Seraphim, I love item 3 on the list. We should require this item to appear on every logo fair use rationale. It's a subject that isn't usually addressed, even though it is mentioned in the WP:LOGO guideline. nadav (talk) 05:55, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the example. I've been tagging the few I mentioned using the template, but this way seems a lot more straightforward. --AW 19:15, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Also, I've been going through User:BetacommandBot's contributions and tagging the legitimate sports logos that the bot recommends for deletion. If anybody else has some time, please do the same. The bot has tagged a very large number of images. --AW 19:41, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
It is crucial, of course, that you check each case to ensure that all the items on the list are satisfied in the article, and that there is a separate rationale for every article on which the logo is used. nadav (talk) 19:50, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

New non-templates

Since a lot of people are being sent here by the bot, we should at least provide some more guidance for different kinds of fair use images. Right now we only have for CD album cover art and historical photographs. I propose the following:

Below are some basic examples. Please modify the text so that it applies to the specific image and use of it. If the image is used in several articles, then include a separate rationale for each article. If the article text comments on the image itself, then write so because that strengthens the fair use claim.

Logotype in the article about the topic that the logo represents

=== Fair use in [[ARTICLE NAME]] ===
Though this image is subject to copyright, its use is covered by the U.S. fair use laws because:
# It illustrates educational articles about the entity that the logotype represents.
# The image is used as the primary means of visual identification of the article topic.
# It is a low resolution image, and thus not suitable for production of counterfeit goods.
# The logotype is not used in such a way the a reader would be confused into believing that the article is written or authorized by the owner of the logotype.
# It is not replaceable with an uncopyrighted or freely copyrighted image of comparable educational value.
~~~~
  • If the image is a scalable vector image, then the size of the image must be as small as possible when used in an article.

CD album cover art in the article about that album

=== Fair use in [[ARTICLE NAME]] ===
Though this image is subject to copyright, its use is covered by the U.S. fair use laws because:
# It illustrates educational articles about the album from which the cover illustration was taken.
# The image is used as the primary means of visual identification of the article topic.
# The use of the cover will not affect the value of the original work or limit the copyright holder's rights or ability to distribute the original. In particular, copies could not be used to make illegal copies of the album artwork on another CD.
# It is a low resolution image.
# The image is only a small portion of the commercial product.
# It is not replaceable with an uncopyrighted or freely copyrighted image of comparable educational value.
~~~~

Video game cover in the article about that game

=== Fair use in [[ARTICLE NAME]] ===
Though this image is subject to copyright, its use is covered by the U.S. fair use laws because:
# It illustrates educational articles about the game from which the cover illustration was taken.
# The use of the cover will not affect the value of the original work or limit the copyright holder's rights or ability to distribute the original. In particular, copies could not be used to make illegal copies of the game.
# It is a low resolution image.
# The image is only a small portion of the commercial product.
# It is not replaceable with an uncopyrighted or freely copyrighted image of comparable educational value.
~~~~

Book cover in the article about that book

=== Fair use in [[ARTICLE NAME]] ===
Though this image is subject to copyright, its use is covered by the U.S. fair use laws because:
# It illustrates educational articles about the book from which the cover illustration was taken.
# The image is used as the primary means of visual identification of the article topic.
# The use of the cover will not affect the value of the original work or limit the copyright holder's rights or ability to distribute the original. In particular, copies could not be used to make illegal copies of the book.
# It is a low resolution image.
# The image is only a small portion of the commercial product.
# It is not replaceable with an uncopyrighted or freely copyrighted image of comparable educational value.
~~~~

Historical photographs

=== Fair use for [[ARTICLE NAME]] ===
Though this image is subject to copyright, its use is covered by the U.S. fair use laws because:
# It is a historically significant photo of a famous individual. (Add sources to backup this claim, like news articles mentioning this image (and not simply using it))
# It is of much lower resolution than the original (copies made from it will be of very inferior quality).
# The photo is only being used for informational purposes.
# Its inclusion in the article adds significantly to the article because the photo and its historical significance are the object of discussion in the article.
~~~~

Again, the above are only general examples; for more information on what needs to be included in this entry see Wikipedia:Non-free content. The information should be as specific as possible, i.e. why you need to use the image as part of the article. Adding this information is no guarantee that the image will not be later removed, but it will demonstrate a rationale to others that you may have a valid justification for including fair use materials that can be used under the GFDL.

Discussion

Comments? Additions? --Apoc2400 09:27, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

We have to be careful not to provide so little information that people don't understand what is necessary for a rationale, but also not to provide so much that people just copy and paste what is here. I would prefer there be less examples and more information in the "necessary components" section. --bainer (talk) 11:18, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
If one of the example here fits exactly, it can be copied I think. The article name will always have to be changed of course. --Apoc2400 11:59, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Given the urgency of the matter with Betacommandbot sending thousands of people here, I went ahead and added the new examples. If anyone thinks that was wrong of me, then revert and discuss it here. Otherwise, let's keep improving the examples right here! --Apoc2400 13:01, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Why does this not cover any sort of PROMOTIONAL uploads? If a particular event or art happened in 2007, it is easy to upload in 2007. You shouldn't have to wait until it is pd-old 50 years later before the law allows it. This goes for band/musician, low-res paintings, concert promotionals etc. It is for the best interest of the subject, whatever it may be. Benjwong 17:28, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
If you want examples, put them up on some other page and direct users to that. There is no need to flood this guideline page, or to tempt users to using cut and paste rationales. -- Ned Scott 03:11, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Users have been crying out for this guidance. And aren't cut and paste rationales appropriate for cut and paste usages? That's how it seems to me. Jheald 03:15, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Each use should have a unique rationale. -- Ned Scott 03:20, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
I would dispute that. Each use should have its own identifiable rationale text. It has to be appropriate. But I don't think there is anything to say it has to be unique. Where the reasons for an image to be included are the same - because it is the single defining visual representation of the object - then it's entirely appropriate for the justifications to be the same. Jheald 03:48, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
And would you mind getting a little thing called consensus before editing this page? I'm sorry you guys are freaking out right now, but this is not appropriate. -- Ned Scott 03:21, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Can you explain what is wrong? Many editors have been complaining that this guideline provides to little practical help on writing rationales. With good examples, the editor will only have to modify and add as necessary. I am trying to make writing fair use rationales easier. Is that wrong? --Apoc2400 03:29, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
This guideline isn't supposed to make the rationale for the user, but rather explain how one would claim a fair use rationale. Bulleted points and the template aren't even the only ways one can do this. It's one thing to help users, it's another to aid the lazy who don't even stop to think if what they are adding is true. -- Ned Scott 04:05, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
The best way to teach something is by example. Instead of the current list of incomplete/bad rationales, we should have a long list of very specific rationales for particular images. I am not saying this list must appear on this page (after all it seems odd to have a bunch of examples on a guideline page), but it should be at a prominent place to which we could easil refer any user who's trying to learn how to craft these things (in the same way we refer them to policy pages). nadav (talk) 04:12, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Do you want to intentionally make it difficult for editors, because you think they are lazy? I think we should help editors writing fair use rationales as much as possible. --Apoc2400 04:10, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
I think the examples are great and definitely belong on the page or somewhere as intuitively and easily located. Let's not make this more complicated than it is. How many hoops do we want to make people find and than jump through in order to use a CD cover in an article about the CD, or a book cover in an article about the book? Can't we agree that such images will always significantly improve an article (meaning the specific article about the subject depicted in image) without impairing the copyright holder's commercial interest? --Butseriouslyfolks 04:07, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
If you wish to use an image that you do not own, being used in a way that violates someone else's copyright, on Wikipedia, then you will be required to use your head and think about why. -- Ned Scott 04:22, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
So you simply want to create hoops for editors writing about companies and albums to jump through. Instead of having clear guidelines about when fair use is allowed, you want to make it really difficult to discourage people. Also, I'm sorry if I broke the formatting. I didn't know about the transcluding. --Apoc2400 04:30, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Asking editors to think why they've uploaded an image is not asking them to jump through hoops. What you are not understanding is that there isn't an "easy" way to just use non-free images on Wikipedia, because those wishing to use them must think about why and say why. -- Ned Scott 04:47, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Putting a low-res logo on a page about a company should be easy. Either you can or you cannot (except for special cases). --Apoc2400 05:15, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I put the examples on a separate page for now. I don't really understand why though. Many of our guidelines have examples for common cases. --Apoc2400 04:22, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

The intention is to get uploaders to think about why they're uploading the image, and if it's actually needed. We're saying "why are you uploading this, why is it needed". If people don't know, then they shouldn't be uploading images. This page is simply to show what format one can use, and what general arguments to include. This is not the place to hand people a pre-made rationale. -- Ned Scott 04:27, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
In cases such as putting the company logo on the page about that company, the editor shouldn't have to think. Either it is generally allowed for visual identification and to show what the logo looks like, or it's only allowed when the logo design is discussed in the article. Neither case requires much thinking. If the first is true, then a pre-made rationale with a small modification is enough. If the second is true, then most logos on Wikipedia should be deleted. --Apoc2400 04:38, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
The uploader is always required to think, and it's only when they are not that images are being deleted. Encouraging uploading, even for simple logos, without the uploader thinking about the need for the image, is not appropriate, and is not in line with policy. You are right that most fair use rationales for logos are going to be very similar, but that's not the point. If someone can't figure this out on their own then they obviously don't understand our policy. What surprises me most in this discussion is that you are trying to make it sound hard to write a fair use rationale for something like a logo. -- Ned Scott 04:47, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Album art, however, is not the same thing as a logo. -- Ned Scott 04:48, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
What I'm saying above is that there are some cases where it is always going to be fair use and therefore never will violate anybody's copyright, so users shouldn't have to think about those issues. There are non-native speakers of English working here, and unncessary steps may serve only to frustrate potentially good contributors. --Butseriouslyfolks 04:50, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia has specific requirements that are in addition to US law. Even if something does not violate what the US says is fair use, it can still fail policy. If they can't generate a valid fair use rationale, then they should ask for help from other editors. -- Ned Scott 04:52, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
What requirements are you referring to that would affect, say, an image of a logo or a CD cover? --Butseriouslyfolks 04:54, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
The same 10 that affect all of our non-free images, as listed on WP:NFCC. -- Ned Scott 04:55, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
So you're saying that none of those are going to be satisfied as a matter of course with every logo? Can't we agree, for example, that #1 is always going to be satisfied for a logo? --Butseriouslyfolks 04:59, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
It's not just the logo's existence as a file on Wikipedia, but it's relation to an article. There might be little that differs between most valid logo uses, if that is what you are getting at. -- Ned Scott 05:05, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Then let's have a copy-n-paste logo example where the uploader can fill in what actually need to differ. --Apoc2400 05:07, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
No, because the uploader is required to actually think about the requirements of the image, and it's use in articles. Giving cookie cutter templates will only lead to abuse of fair use rationales. -- Ned Scott 05:11, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Why does the uploader have to think when it is a standard case that has already been thought out by the community? Other than checking that the image and it's use actually fits the template that is. --Apoc2400 05:17, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Most articles about companies have exactly the same need for a logo. Most editors don't learn more about our policies than what they need to write articles, and rightfully so. If you take a look at some of the rationales editors are adding to images in response to the bot-tagging, you will see that writing a good rationale is difficult. --Apoc2400 04:57, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
"Most editors don't learn more about our policies than what they need to write articles, and rightfully so" Except for all those large colorful boxes on the upload page. Any user who wishes to ignore those has no right to complain about getting their image tagged by a bot. -- Ned Scott 05:01, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Many images was uploaded at the time when the type-specific templates were enough. You need to show some more respect for other editors. Even if you think they are lazy bastards who ignore rules. --Apoc2400 05:06, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Excuse me, but don't put words in my mouth. I have not called anyone a bastard in this discussion, and I don't take kindly to people twisting things around to make it sound like I did. -- Ned Scott 05:10, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
We have thousands of articles about companies with exactly the same need (or non-need) for a logo. We have thousands of album articles with the same need for a cover image. There is no reason to make editors think about each of them separately. Doing so will only give us a lot of bad rationales. Some cases are different from the big mass, and THEN the editor needs to think carefully. -Apoc2400 05:03, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
The problem then is the user uploading the image. If a user doesn't understand our policy then they should not be uploading any images on Wikipedia. Did you know that the uploader of a file is legally responsible for having a fair use claim to using it? -- Ned Scott 05:07, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
The problem is that editors aren't given enough guidance. Also, you don't answer about what we should do about the big classes of same-situation images. --Apoc2400 05:13, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
We can give guidance without giving copy/paste rationales. And note that there indeed cases where a logo should not be used. For example, if the logo is esoteric or historical and there is no critical commentary of it. nadav (talk) 05:16, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
1) A template is more useful. 2) Then the template should say "current logotype". I will add that. Thanks! --Apoc2400 05:19, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
If an editor still doesn't get it from reading this page, WP:NONFREE, and / or by asking for help, then they probably shouldn't be uploading images to Wikipedia. For "same-situation images", I've already told you, for each upload and for each article, the uploader or editor using the image should think about the situation. If they are, and they are honestly coming to the same conclusions and using the same rationales, then you have a valid rationale each time. (assuming they are right, of course) However, encouraging cookie-cutter templates is not the way to do something like that. -- Ned Scott 05:19, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
But if it's a cookie cutter use, what's wrong with a cookie cutter rationale? As you said, There might be little that differs between most valid logo uses, if that is what you are getting at. --Butseriouslyfolks 05:24, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Now you're asking me to repeat myself. "No, because the uploader is required to actually think about the requirements of the image, and it's use in articles. Giving cookie cutter templates will only lead to abuse of fair use rationales. -- Ned Scott 05:11, 7 June 2007 (UTC)" -- Ned Scott 05:32, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
So even though it's a cookie-cutter use, and a cookie-cutter rationale will do, the uploader is required to think and we have to make them do it. OK. Can we just give them an IQ test while the image is uploading and give them a pass on the rationale? This really seems unnecessarily pedantic to me. --Butseriouslyfolks 05:37, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

(indent reset) The whole point of a fair-use rationale is to show that they've really given thought and consideration to the question of whether a fair-use image is appropriate in one particular article. There may indeed be cases where it's often acceptable, but there are no cases in which it's always acceptable. Consideration of use of a fair-use image isn't supposed to be taken lightly and isn't supposed to be done en masse. The fair-use rationale shows whether the uploader actually considered the educational value, irreplaceability, etc., of the fair-use image for the specific article it's used in. It's not meant to show that they understand how to use their computer's "copy" and "paste" function, it's meant to show they actually thought about it. Seraphimblade Talk to me 06:00, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

So is it invalid if the rationale is added later by another editor? I think the point is not to show that the uploader "thought", but rather to explain why the use is a fair one. Can you point me to a policy that states that the uploader must "think" as opposed to simply "explain"? Because if not, I think stock explanations are an appropriate way to go. --Butseriouslyfolks 06:07, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
This doesn't address Seraphim's valid points. Substitute "person who wants the non-free image to be used" for "uploader." nadav (talk) 06:23, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
It's a fair observation though. Yes, someone other than the uploader may add a rationale (though given that the uploader is only allowed to upload the image if it's to be used in at least one article, and must put it into that article within a week, the uploader should be providing at least one rationale-the one for that specific article.) But if they fail to, the image is tagged (or you just notice that they forgot) and you believe it's fair use and you can explain why, you certainly can. And of course, if you wish to insert the image into another article besides the one the uploader originally used it in, it's your responsibility to provide the rationale for that use. Seraphimblade Talk to me 06:43, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. So I gather that the uploader is not required to think, as long as someone else does. But where is the policy that says it has to be a deliberative process as opposed to a rote cut and paste, as long as an acceptable justification (i.e., rationale) is the result? Also, I just uploaded an image (for the first time!) to test things out, and the process leaves something to be desired. Is there a way to herd fair use uploads into a second form that requires uploaders to give some kind of rationale? --Butseriouslyfolks 06:59, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
As I explained here and elsewhere, it's a consequence of fair use being a defence to claims of copyright infringement and not a positive entitlement. Any use not according to a licence or some other permission is prima facie infringement, unless a defence can be established. In practice uses which are related by a strong analogy to existing uses which have been held to be fair use in courts are considered to be "ok" for practical purposes, though they are still prima facie infringement.
It's because untested uses are only considered "ok" because of the process of analogy that the production of a rationale cannot be done by cut-and-paste. --bainer (talk) 07:27, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
How is that different from any other situation where rights and responsibilities are determined by caselaw as opposed to statute? If you're a policeman trying to arrest someone and they pull a gun on you, you're clearly allowed to shoot them nonfatally to protect yourself. Yes, that's a specific case, but we're talking about very specific uses alleged to be fair. Surely the precedent establishes a safe harbor that can be used for specific types of images in certain articles. Also, isn't a collectively prepared, well-thought out and comprehensive cut-and-paste rationale going to be more persuasive in court and therefore more protective of WP and the uploader than 99% of the individual rationales we're going to get from the typical image uploader? As long as it accurately and properly justifies the use, what difference does it make whether it was crafted by the uploader or copied from somebody else? --Butseriouslyfolks 07:51, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Aren't you being copyright paranoid now? Is every case of one author citing an other "prima facie infringement"? --Apoc2400 08:00, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Continuation: Are you a fair use legal expert? I'm not claiming to be, but this is how out own article on fair use starts:
Fair use is a doctrine in United States copyright law that allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders, such as use for scholarship or review. It provides for the legal, non-licensed citation or incorporation of copyrighted material in another author's work under a four-factor balancing test.
It looks very different from what bainer said above. --Apoc2400 08:20, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

(indent reset) Ok, I'm an occasional editor. But the fair-use rationale seems pretty obvious for an image in the article dealing with that movie/album/whatever. I don't see TV stations run tiny disclaimers every time they use a fair-use image, and they haven't been sued off the airwaves. I feel it's the content on the page that would justify the image, and the image template should include generic language that, when used in an appropriate article, would satisfy copyright fair use. It would be helpful if Wikipedia just had a lawyer clarify official policy and approve specific generic templates. This confusion allows operators of bots like BetacommandBot to alienate hobby editors who are acting in good faith. --Pesco 23:21, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Partial examples

I've modified the examples text, because those examples are obviously inadequate. My text read:

Below are some basic, partial examples. Full rationales would explain why the non-free item is needed, why a free item cannot be used in its place, and what essential function it performs in each article in which it is to be used.

--Tony Sidaway 16:02, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

  • Why do you think they are inadequate? The examples already answer those questions I think. If not, can you give examples of what the answers to those questions could be? --Apoc2400 16:10, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
It is always a good idea to encourage users to add as much detail as possible for each specific case, so I agree with Tony's change. For example, a user could add: "This golden arches logo is not being added just to fill up the McDonalds infobox, but rather is an image that is closely associated with the company and is widely familiar, so it enables easy identification of the subject." nadav (talk) 17:31, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Why does he think they are inadequate? Well he did say "Full rationales would explain why the non-free item is needed, why a free item cannot be used in its place, and what essential function it performs in each article in which it is to be used", I think that explains it well. (H) 17:36, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Striking the word "partial" from Tony's text, and changing it to "Good rationales might expand on why the non-free item is needed...". But per the current status quo interpretation of policy, these rationales are adequate, and the guideline should indicate that. Jheald 17:43, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
I'd expect something like "the iconography of the cover and liner notes for this Led Zeppelin album are of significant historical interest", or "this cover art by Roger Dean illustrates a science fantasy theme that identified classic-period Yes (band) in its albums and promotional material, but on its tours, in which Dean-designed props were often used", or "this UK cover for the first Lindisfarne album humorously depicts the group as parochial northerners down to conquer the capital, using sepia photography and art deco design to evoke a period feel." --Tony Sidaway 17:47, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
That is beyond what current policy requires. If you disagree, the place to make your case is talk WP:FAIR, where this question is under current consideration. Jheald 17:55, 6 June 2007 (UTC)


That reverses the meaning. The examples are not adequate. --Tony Sidaway 17:47, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
(EC) Actually, by current policy, each rationale must be specific. The examples do indeed make a good base, but we don't want to get people thinking they should just copy and paste them. There's a reason specific rationales must be written in addition to the boilerplate tag, and it's not just to make people use two boilerplates instead of one. It's to make them really think about whether it's truly appropriate to use a fair-use image, and if they believe it is, to specifically explain why. Seraphimblade Talk to me 17:48, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Each rationale must be specific to the use in question. But equivalent uses will have equivalent rationales. For standard examples of such uses, one aim of this page is to provide adequate standard rationales. Per current WP policy, convention, and usage the use of an album image on an album article is one such acceptable use. If you disagree with that policy, the place to change it is WP:FAIR, not here. Jheald 18:00, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Indeed, you cannot just copy an example rational but must customize it for the specific application. (H) 17:49, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
If it is a standard acceptable application, what is there that needs to be changed? Apoc2004's aim with these templates is to produce adequate rationales for standard acceptable applications. Jheald 18:03, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
(EC, combining responses to above comment about policy and last comment here) Actually, current policy (the policy set by the Wikimedia Foundation, by the way, not anything we can alter or override here) is that use of fair-use images, if permitted at all, must be minimal and done only when absolutely essential, and there's no possible way a free-use image could work. A good fair-use rationale explains why the image is essential and irreplaceable, not just "Well, it's an album cover, and we've always used album covers." The question is-would the article seriously suffer for lack of the image? In the case of Kim Phuc, we can certainly say yes, absolutely, the article would suffer tremendously without the use of that famous and iconic image. In the case of an album, where the cover wasn't anything special or controversial and was basically just to avoid selling a CD with a blank front, it's not so clear-cut that taking out the image would be terribly detrimental to a reader's understanding.
As to your question here, there is no standard acceptable application. Every use is considered on an individual basis, not a blanket one. What does it add to the article? Is a free alternative available or possible? Does it greatly enhance the educational purpose of the article or just pretty it up? These questions must be answered every time, for every article. They cannot be answered on a blanket basis. Seraphimblade Talk to me 18:07, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Actually, the resolution says the EDP must be minimal, not the usage. Specifically approved is the aim "to complement (within narrow limits) articles about copyrighted contemporary works". Legally, it is important to bear in mind the difference in fair-use law between complementary use and substitutive use. Use of a small thumbnail of an album cover in an encyclopedic-quality article on the album will - without fail - be complementary use; and will - without fail - significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic in a way that words alone cannot. Jheald 18:45, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Quite correct on what it says, quite incorrect on what it means. Saying "Use a fair-use image in any album article you like" is not a narrow limit, it's throwing the door wide open for thousands upon thousands of articles. Saying "Use the album cover in the album article if and only if it significantly adds to the educational value of the article, and say exactly why you believe it does" is a narrow limit. Seraphimblade Talk to me 19:28, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
It all depends on your interpretation of narrow. I think one low-res image of an album cover in the article about that album is narrow. Even though there are thousands of such articles. Having 50 cover images in a discography is not narrow. --Apoc2400 02:21, 7 June 2007 (UTC)


Ideal examples

To reinforce the fact that the current examples are merely a base and to further convey what a well-written rationale looks like, I think we should add a new section that displays some of the best ones we have. It would give people something to aim for. nadav (talk) 17:55, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

There are some at: User:ESkog/Rationales.
Another is Image:BizarreRideIIthePharcyde.jpg.
Hope this helps. ~ BigrTex 18:25, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Just wrote one for Image:TrangBang.jpg. There really isn't any boilerplate for something like that, but I'd be interested to see what anyone thinks. Seraphimblade Talk to me 19:00, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Latest bureaucratic hissy fit

This is completely fucking stupid. There is nothing in your proposed bullet list that is not already covered in the existing fair-use tags. If you want to ban fair-use images, ban them. Making it gradually more and more inconvenient to use them just pisses off good faith editors. Wikipedia is becoming horrible, thanks to the increasingly widespread lust for bureaucracy. Stop making Wikipedia horrible. Thank you.

Further, those obnoxious fucking bot warnings on people's user pages come across as insulting, and erode the civility of Wikipedia.

Dybryd 18:11, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Quiet, slave, your masters shall whip you into submission! (Unless you decide that you're not a slave and that this shit isn't worth your time, of course)
...
On a more serious note, I think that the examples on this page are a great idea, if boilerplates REALLY aren't enough. Not every instance of fair use is entirely unique - many are very similar. I wonder if it would be possible to add some more commonly-used rationales, for example: film screenshots. Low-res examples of artwork in an article about an artist, complete with critical commentary.
I hope that every effort is made to make it as easy as possible for the many editors who have been notified; we would do well to remember that they're not paid to do this. Esn 19:10, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Portion of work

The amount of work used is a very important point in the U.S. fair use doctrine. Please, please don't instruct uploaders to upload an entire work, please don't state baldly that we use entire works, and note that a CD cover is not "a small part of the CD". If you need help with this sort of thing, there are a number of knowledgeable people around to explain things. What we want are very low-resolution images. Low resolution has been found in court to be analogous to a small amount of the original. That's what we mean when we discuss a small portion of the work -- the original work is the full-size and resolution image, and we expect uploaders to only upload thumbnailed versions of that original. Jkelly 19:15, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone know what a typical resolution is for, let's say, a full-quality version of a film poster? It is enormous, far bigger than anyone's screen resolution. I'd say that even if a film poster is big by web resolution standards, it is still only a very small portion of the original and cannot be used to recreate it. Esn 19:23, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
There's no clear-cut rule on how big a reduction in resolution is needed. If the original is very intricate in detail, then a moderate reduction of the resolution may eliminate a lot of the detail. However, if the original is a very simple image, then the resolution would have to be greatly reduced. nadav (talk) 20:39, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
It shouldn't be any bigger than the size at which it is displayed on the article as a thumbnail. --bainer (talk) 08:34, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
I think that's probably right. Jheald 08:41, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, a thumbnail can be displayed at any desired resolution, and its default option is somewhat arbitrary. The question is how big the image should be. nadav (talk) 08:40, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
If you go to your preferences and look under the "files" tab you can set the default thumbnail width, which applies when someone specifies "thumb" in the wikitext but not an actual width. The maximum setting is 300 pixels, which happens to correspond with what, in my experience, is the largest size at which images are displayed in articles. 300 pixels would seem to be the largest appropriate width. --bainer (talk) 08:55, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Does anyone have access to the court documents which would say how much of a reduction in resolution was considered to be appropriate. With all due respect, the 300px limit is rather arbitrary. We should strive to provide the best-quality image which it is possible to do under the law. Well-known newspapers frequently upload screenshots or posters from a film which are wider than 300px on their websites. Esn 10:15, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
The idea is "Use as little as possible", not "See how much you can get away with." Since there's no real need to have more than 300-pixel resolution and that's the maximum preference setting, there's no good reason to have the image higher-resolution than that. Seraphimblade Talk to me 16:16, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
No, per the law and per the policy we can only provide the minimum possible taking from the copyright material sufficient to achieve the purpose which is held to justify the fair use. If you need a bigger picture, it can only be because something special about the bigger picture is necessary, otherwise the picture would be no use. Myself, I think 300px is quite on the generous side, and you know I'm no enemy of (appropriate) fair use here. Jheald 10:25, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Image:Citizen Kane deep focus.jpg is a good example of an image where higher resolution than that used in the article is useful and arguably needed. Kotepho 10:46, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

CD cover example

I know what the statement was getting at and I still removed it intentionally. Viewing a CD as a whole is not useful in the general sense. The packaging of the CD, the recording itself, and the song are all likely to be copyrighted differently. In the case of the packaging, using the from sleeve of a CD cover is likely to be a great deal of the work and might even be all of it (I have many CDs that the front sleeve's back is white and there is no creative packaging on the spine or back. This example is misleading at best and blatantly wrong at worst. Kotepho 19:19, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Quite correct. Even if the same copyright holder holds the copyright to the artwork and music (and often, that's not even the case), they would still be considered separate works. In the same way, the cover of a movie or a movie poster is not "a small part of the movie." (Though, a thumbnailed version of a movie poster or other work is considered to be only a small part of that work.) A 20-second sample of a song from the CD would be an example of "a small part of the CD." Seraphimblade Talk to me 19:32, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. The statement, put as baldly as it was, was misleading, and considered in the round, I'd now accept that Kotepho was right to delete it. So feel free to redo the delete or rewrite. A principal normal exploitation of the image is likely to be in relation to the success and reputation of the album as a work as a whole, and that would be a strong factor in establishing that the use here was complementary rather than substitutive. But yes, the statement so baldly and so prominently, without nuance and without detailed exposition is simply misleading, and I now accept, it is unquestionably the right call for it to come out. Jheald 19:51, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Singular / Plural

I don't know if this has come up before (I've been half-following the conversations), and I don't want to start messing about half cocked, but shouldn't each example rationale refer to "It illustrates an educational article" (in the singular) as opposed to "It illustrates educational articles"? That would better emphasize that each rationale is only good for one article. --Butseriouslyfolks 19:47, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

You are right. I will change that. --Apoc2400 00:25, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Just asking

I'm quite inexperienced when it comes to images. I uploaded one and added a fair use rationale. Would this be acceptable? If not, what else must be done? RyanGerbil10(Don't ask 'bout Camden) 21:19, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

This is a tricky one since though you created the town (I presume), the sprites are built into the game. In any case, you should definitely reduce the resolution of the image. It's currently at 1024 × 768 pixels, which means that it has the same amount of detail as the original 800x600 picture. Also, looking at the Sim City 4 page, I'm not convinced there's enough critical commentary about the image to warrant its inclusion. nadav (talk) 23:00, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Unofficial guideline is part of official policy? What?

I just looked at Wikipedia:Non-free_content_criteria. That page says: This is policy!

That page, apparently as part of consensus policy, directs the reader to this page for a description of the required-by-policy fair-use rationale.

However, this page isn't a policy. It's only a guideline.

How can an approved policy require editors to follow an unofficial guideline? It doesn't make sense.

Here's what I suspect may have happened:

  1. The community hashed out Wikipedia:Non-free_content_criteria and made it policy.
  2. Somebody got the bright idea of adding redundant "fair-use rationales" to thousands of existing images.
  3. That person strolled over to an existing policy and significantly altered it without getting full consensus support.

Am I slandering that "somebody"? If so, what is the real explanation for what seem to be a logical contradiction? Dybryd 11:38, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I will figure out exactly how the need for Fair Use Rationales came into existence. I don't think that fair use rationales are required by U.S. law doing google searches for "Fair Use" and "Fair use rationale" (I did an exact phrase search on the second one) limited to the .gov top level domain. The listing at the top of the list for "Fair use" ([3]) has no mention of explaining precisely how the image will be used. I will do further research on Google if I can't figure this out looking at page histories and talk pages on Wikipedia (possibly meta-wiki or commons as well). Also, rationale related deletions happened before this page was created I think. This page just explains how rationales should be made. Funpika 19:45, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks a lot for taking the time to track this down. There's a lot of text to dig through, and it's often pretty difficult to pin down where the decision got made on which practice is later based.
I'm doing my best to sift the talk archives myself. Dybryd 19:49, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Pages like Wikipedia talk:*name*/Archive *number* won't be enough. For example I found something to look at in the talk page of a currently redirected page. I am still going through histories related to the image policies to figure out how fair use rationale got to "images without fair use rationale will be deleted". That wasn't originally part of fair use rationale. Funpika 20:07, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Initially Wikipedia only accepted free media. Over time, however, there were pushes to include unfree media in certain limited situations. The first version of the process can be seen here; users wanting to use unfree media had to gain consensus to use that media, and as part of that they had to provide a fair use rationale and look into whether there were any free alternatives. There was also a requirement to request permission first - fair use was a fallback position to be used only where permission could not be obtained. If consensus were obtained, it would be tagged with {{verifieduse}}, now a redirect to another template, which used to say (this is a deleted revision, credit to Eloquence, 16:39, 20 February 2004):

This file or image is copyrighted. After deliberation on Wikipedia:Fair use, it has been decided that it is eligible for fair use under United States law, and that there are no alternatives to using it under that doctrine. It is therefore contended that this file or image is fair use; if you use it for any non-educational purpose, you may be in violation of copyright law.

Wikipedia prefers to use images which are in the public domain or licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. If you know of any way to obtain this image, or an equivalent one, under such conditions, please post a comment on Wikipedia talk:Fair use, with a link to the article the image is included in.

See Copyrights for further details.

Eventually the use of unfree media outgrew the capacity of a system to handle requests, so people could upload unfree media themselves. The requirements to provide a fair use rationale and to ensure that there were no free alternatives eventually shifted to the media description page instead (there was some debate about whether it should go on media pages, the talk pages of articles the media was used in, or even in the article itself in HTML comments). So you see the requirement to provide a rationale has been there since uploading unfree media was first organised, although you're right in saying that it hasn't always been the case that it must be on the media description page (that paragraph arose in about March 2004). --bainer (talk) 23:44, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Dybryd, you're not making any sense. This page hasn't existed that long, and long before it FUR were required for non-free images. It's been a part of policy for a few years now. The policy says "you must do this, and if you need help doing this, see this" and then points to a guideline. Sounds perfectly logical to me. You can delete this page and the requirement will still be there. -- Ned Scott 04:51, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

What this is all about: Shall we use fair-use images in these standard cases?

See Wikipedia_talk:Non-free_content#What_this_is_all_about:_Shall_we_use_fair-use_images_in_these_standard_cases.3F --Apoc2400 13:06, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Album covers - How much is enough?

I added fair use rationales to a whole bunch of album covers, but was blocked for 15 minutes and was told in IRC it wasn't enough and that I had to be more specific. For example, in Image:Jefferson Airplane-Volunteers (album cover).jpg, I added the fourth and fifth points, but I'm still not sure if I am adding enough information to these images. It all seemed pretty clear before until I was stopped and told I was doing it wrong. I don't really see the point in having to write for each album cover image that "it is fair use in the article Album because... etc." when we could just write "it is fair use in the article about the album because... etc." I've read the fair use rationale guidelines many many times, and if what I am doing isn't sufficient, I am at a loss. The Jefferson Airplane one was pretty easy because it does have striking artwork, but others are really difficult. How much do I really need to add to this? Does there need to be critical commentary of the artwork for the image to be needed in the article? It seems like people disagree about this, and it seems kind of pointless to go adding a comment in the article to talk about the artwork when the artwork is pretty bland. Every article would then say something like, "The artwork on the cover sets the tone for the music on the album," which seems to be kind of redundant. Of course it does! That's the point of having an album cover in any article about an album. --Strangerer (Talk) 12:52, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Interesting! Let's take a look at the rationale you provided, and maybe some of the "fair use" experts here can tell us how it can be improved:
Non-free media information and use rationale true – NEEDS ARTICLE NAME
Description

Album cover of Volunteers

Source

Derived from a scan of the album cover (creator of this digital version is irrelevant as the copyright in all equivalent images is still held by the same party) Copyright held by the record company or the artist. Claimed as fair use regardless.

Article

No article specified. Please edit this file description and add the name of the article the file is used in. (get help with syntax)

Portion used

Entire front cover, but does not include back or insides of original artwork or audio content on the album

Low resolution?

Is only as much resolution is necessary to identify and show the style of artwork used for the article, not enough to be used for piracy. The copy of the image is low-resolution and will not produce high-quality copies of the art for illegal duplication. The quality is high enough to clearly present the image and to place the subject represented by the image in a good light.

Purpose of use

It illustrates educational articles about the album from which the cover illustration was taken and identifies it by recognized features.

Replaceable?

It is not replaceable with an uncopyrighted or freely copyrighted image of comparable educational value. A free image could not be created to replace it without itself being a derivative work.

Other information

Image in this form is already widely distributed to identify the album as part of catalogs and reviews, so we degrade no market value by providing it ourselves. Though this image is subject to copyright, its use is covered by the U.S. fair use laws for the reasons above and because:

  1. It is a low resolution copy of an album cover, a small portion of the commercial product, and serves as an easily identifiable part of a larger entity.
  2. The use of the cover will not affect the value of the original work or limit the copyright holder's rights or ability to distribute the original album, and may even increase the potential for the copyright owner to gain from the image.
  3. The image is used as the primary means of visual identification of topics in the article. For an article about an album or artist, the cover artwork is very important and adds significantly to the educational article.
  4. The image is needed in the article about the album Volunteers because it specifically discusses the art; using the image adds significant value to the article and promotes understanding of the album and the band that would be impossible without using the image.
  5. The image is needed in the article about the band Jefferson Airplane because it conveys an attitude in the band at the time the album was made, which can be seen in the artwork through the use of the American flag, sketchy features, and black and white overlay. It is not merely decorative; using the image adds significant value to the article and promotes an understanding of the band that would be impossible without using the image.
Fair useFair use of copyrighted material in the context of [[{{{Article}}}]]//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Non-free_use_rationale_guideline/Archive_1true

Jenolen speak it! 05:39, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Is that the version that was challenged, or is that a subsequent, improved version? --Butseriouslyfolks 05:49, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
That's a subsequent edit; I added points 4 and 5 because someone on IRC said I should put something in the article about the cover artwork. --Strangerer (Talk) 09:31, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Holy moley! You mean someone thought points 1, 2 and 3 weren't enough? Goodness... Jenolen speak it! 09:47, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Whether commentary of the artwork needs to be in albums is disputed, and User:Jimbo has specifically indicated otherwise. The block looks to be inappropriate - just keep up the good work. WilyD 13:12, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

My own view, which is at the extreme end of the spectrum I know, and therefore not (yet) formal policy in every case, is that we ought to have almost no fair use, outside of a very narrow class of images that are of unique historical importance. The cover of an album is the best and only sensible illustration of an article about that album, for example.

— Jimbo Wales

Which you can view the original diff for [here. Cheers, WilyD 13:15, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

4 and 5 are needed. You need to explain where it is used and why it is needed. Not sure about the appropriateness of the block. (H) 13:27, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

A little history on FURG

To help some people understand how FURG came about:

At first the page pretty much just showed a user how to use {{Non-free media rationale}} (December 2006). The users behind the template and guideline stated the need for a guideline on how to write a fair use rationale. To expand the page content was taken from Help:Image page#Fair use rationale (which actually exists on Template:Ph:Image page, and before that used to be Wikipedia:Image description page) and then transcluded FURG back in (so when you update FURG, you also update Help:Image page) (April 2007). Two CSD relating directly to FURG were also referenced. Throw in some re-wording, clarification, and we have what we now call Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline.

So in a short time we went from instructions buried deep on the image help page, and template instructions, to something that is much easier to find and did a fairly decent job at explaining the previously mysterious concept. As always, there's going to be room for improvement. It's something we expected to happen since more people would be able to find this information. -- Ned Scott 05:08, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

And further, the "fair use rationale" requirement has been seen long before FURG existed. On Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria the text citing it's requirement can be seen on the very first edit in September 2005. Before that we can find the concept being developed back in February 2004 on Wikipedia:Non-free content, when our fair use guidelines were first emerging. -- Ned Scott 05:20, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Speedy deletion

Why don't you ask the person who created it how it came about? The original I6 said that images containing only the generic fair use tag - {{fairuse}} or {{fairusein}} could be speedied. That language was changed without discussion to "generic fair use tag" with the stated purpose of applying it to {{fairusein2}}, {{fairusein3}}, and other variations on that theme. Well, before long, some people forgot what it really meant and started speedying logos, tv screenshots, and other such things, for not having a rationale even though there was a rationale built right into the tag and at the time they were uploaded, everyone considered that rationale to be sufficient. I argued at length to try and get the criterion changed back, but I was unpersuasive. So I created this guideline for the purpose of having a target. If we are going to be deleting images for not having a rationale, we need to specify exactly what has to be on that image. My motive was to stop the insanity that, with bot assistance, has caused us to lose our focus. Instead of cleaning up actual, real copyvios, we are now removing images that only lack a pro forma requirement. It's one thing when there's no source - if the image has no source, someone else can try to google for it, but there's no guarantee that we can figure it out. But if an image is otherwise legitimate to use under a claim of fair use, then we shouldn't be deleting images just because i's aren't dotted on the description page - we should fix it. --BigDT 05:33, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's the problem. I think we're wasting time being unnecessarily pedantic while we have bigger fish to fry, and we're also needlessly frustrating users who are making a genuine effort to read policies and comply. I don't want to get back into the lather-rinse-repeat cycle of the above discussion, but we really should come to some consensus and offer better guidance to the 99.9% of users who are less familiar with fair use issues than we are. --Butseriouslyfolks 05:47, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
The system would be much simpler if we strictly confined our use of unfree media to the three types of use set out in the licensing policy resolution, that is:
  1. depictions of historically significant events,
  2. identifying protected works such as logos, and
  3. narrow use to complement articles about copyrighted contemporary works,
provided of course that no free alternative (not free equivalent) is available. This is enough to cover all of the important uses: the first one is things like the photo of the guy and the tank in Tiananmen Square, the second is things like the Microsoft logo, the third is things like the various images in Campbell's Soup Cans. --bainer (talk) 06:00, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Ok, but that would be a matter more for WP:CSD rather than here.. Besides, even without I6, all of the images can fall under I7 (with notification of the uploader) for 48 hours. And that was a speedy long before this whole bot tag party started. -- Ned Scott 06:51, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Bots becoming harmful

The way that bots can tag images, but editors have to actively create *detailed* rationale for images that are legitimately tagged as fair-use is detrimental to the wiki. If one image has a tag, for instance, stating that the image is fair use because it is an album cover and no other images could replicate this, then all album images should have the same tag. Perhaps a bot should be created to answer the bots? It would certainly be feasible, but perhaps not a good precedent.... --PopUpPirate 23:51, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

A tag is one thing, a rational is also needed, each article needs a rational, the bot tags things with no rational. Not sure what you are getting at? (H) 00:07, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Copyrighted images of recently-deceased people

Hoping for some clarification from an expert - is this picture's fair use rationale acceptable? To me it seems to fall under #5 in Examples of unacceptable use, but, on the other hand, the persons are now deceased and image may not be easily replaceable with a free one. Appreciate any guidance that can be provided, thanks. Videmus Omnia 18:39, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Fair use images of deceased people are generally acceptable. —Remember the dot (talk) 22:11, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Why not "simply copy them"?

It seems like the non-template logo explanation says everything that would need to be said. What would somebody need to alter or expand? --P4k 01:49, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Better to post notices on article talk pages than on the uploader's talk page

So I'm really not very active on here these days, but every so often I check in and find the usual deluge of notices, often bot-produced, that fair use images I uploaded years ago according to previous policies/procedures have either been orphaned, challenged as "replaceable," or are labelled as not having the fair use rationale currently required. Fine, I'm typically not interested because I am not a regular contributor to the relevant articles, or I actually agree that the image no longer meets current criteria.

But it strikes me as completely ridiculous that an image could get deleted without there first being any notice on the talk page of the article that uses it. Replaceability and FU rationale both necessarily involve editorial judgments regarding what informational relationship the image has to the article, which the article's regular contributors would be best suited to provide. Simply notifying the uploader is contrary to the reality of Wikipedia as a collaborative project, and contrary to the principle that no contributor has ownership over their contributions or uploads. There is simply no reason to think that the original image uploader has a stronger, present relationship with and interest in the image—and its role in any particular article—than the current and regular contributors to an article who probably have it watchlisted. Someone just "passing through" a topic may have noticed that it lacks a relevant screenshot, just as they may have noticed that it has a typo, and then take no further interest in it. But the article that uses an image necessarily has a continuing relationship with that image. For those reasons, I think it would be better to only post an article talk page notice than to only post a notice on the uploader's talk page.

I think it would even be preferable to simply orphan the image on whatever claim (just explain "replaceable" or whatever in the edit summary), and then let it get deleted automatically after the several day orphan wait period if no one objects. At least that initial removal of the image from an article acts as notice that someone thinks it does not belong, which can then be challenged if other contributors think the image should stay, just as if any text were to be removed from an article (imagine only leaving user talk page notices that "your sentence will be deleted in seven days"!). But it's simply not rational procedure for the first public sign of a challenge to an image to be its outright deletion from an article and the project. Uploader talk page notices are simply not calculated to give sufficient notice to currently interested contributors, or to get attention to fixable problems. Postdlf 18:28, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I believe Betacommandbot was leaving notes on article talk pages as well. Not sure about the other bots/ scripts. -- Ned Scott 03:33, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, Im currently the only Bot operator that does FUR, and I notify all users in the file history and leave a note on all pages where the image is used. ∆ 19:14, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

It's good that you leave article talk page notices. Nevertheless, not everyone does, and this project page, under the speedy deletion section, still says only to notify the uploader. This should be changed. Any objections? Postdlf 06:56, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Do we have some agreement on generic FUR tags?

I know there was a lot of discussion, and I hate to bring it up again, but... did we reach a consensus on whether things like {{bookcover}} count as a fair use rationale or not? I'm thinking of looking into the backlog of images with no fair use rationale and I want to be sure I know the current consensus. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:14, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

  • WP:NFCC point #10 seems to indicate a clear difference between the type of licensing tag and then the requirement of a unique fair-use rationale (points b and c). (ESkog)(Talk) 02:24, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
    • The language of that template indicates that it must be accompanied by a FUR. But I still think a generic FUR would work for most of our blanket cases. -- But|seriously|folks  17:53, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
      • That template is a license template and generic fair use rationales cannot fulfill what a proper rationale needs, Where is the image used and why does said page have to have the image? ∆ 18:58, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
        • But "why does said page have to have the image" is going to be the same for every album cover, or every DVD cover, or every book cover. So how about a generic FUR for each specific blanket type + where used? -- But|seriously|folks  19:05, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
Why there cannot be a generic template for fair use claims. --bainer (talk) 09:17, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
But see the demolition by U.S. copyright lawyer User:Wikidemo of that point of view here and his comments here -- Jheald 10:23, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
Templates are fine to use so long as they produce the right result. Policy and guidelines speak to the content of the rationale, not the means used to generate it. Anyone who argues they cannot work is just voicing an opinion. It's like saying that people from Texas are unable to write a notable article about Oklahoma. The proof is in the pudding. I'm working on a few templates for the easy cases like album covers, logos, book covers, etc. They're not generic, you still have to type something in. But for a range of images, if you type in what you need and keep an eye out to make sure they apply, they'll produce a sound rationale. For harder cases like movie screen shots it will probably be harder to produce a template that's very generalizable. I won't opine about the law in Australia but user:bainer's essay is not United States copyright law. I'll post back later once I have some templates to show. Wikidemo 06:01, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
This sounds like it could be a good idea. As long as uploaders are still thinking about why they need to use the image, and not just slapping tags on, the community is more likely to support the idea. -- Ned Scott 06:12, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Sure. BetacommandBot has cranked up again tonight and is once again flagging images that are for the most part suitable for template-assisted rationales. I'm preparing my arbitration case on that too, so excuse me for a spell while I make pudding instead of talk about it. Wikidemo 06:20, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
ArbCom case for BetacommandBot? The bot isn't doing anything wrong, and is only tagging images that have no data other than a licensing template. Even if you have a fair use rationale, the image still requires a source, copyright status, and other things listed on WP:NFCC. If any of those images had even just a source, the bot wouldn't have tagged it. Don't blame the bot for the policy. -- Ned Scott 06:33, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
That subject is discussed elsewhere and does not directly relate to WP:FURG. Feel free to leave a note on my talk page if you want to be added to the list of interested parties and get a notice when the case is filed - there should be plenty of opportunity to sound in then. Wikidemo 08:03, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Betacommandbot isn't doing a thing wrong this time. You want to use a fair-use image, you need to make a case why it's acceptable this time, in that article. Templates or generic rationales do not and cannot do that, the idea is to show you thought about it. (If you didn't think about it or don't understand it, well, you shouldn't be uploading or using fair-use images!) Seraphimblade Talk to me 08:11, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
If you look eg at Wikidemo's rationale for Image:Xanga.gif, it is in exemplary conformance with the requirements for rationales, even though most of it (eg the reasoning for NFCC #8 compliance) is fully templated. Two important positives from using a template like this: firstly it groups together usage incidents of this type, and makes it very easy to find them (which pages use the template?); secondly, it means the text for a large number of usage incidents is standardised on one page, can be legalled, and can be improved very simply in one step for all of them if necessary. Jheald 10:22, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Responding in general; licensing tags do not constitute fair use rationales. Templates can not be used, in full, for generic fair use rationales. Templates can be used to assist with fair use rationales and that is all. --Durin 12:33, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
    • The impression I have from this thread and this thread on WT:NONFREE is that although {{bookcover}} and its ilk are insufficient for a FURG, there are certain uses that are allowed, including a decorative image of a book cover on the article about that book, and the rationales for such uses will end up being so similar that we could make a second template (as User:Wikidemo says he is doing) that would take the necessary copyright and article info and turn it into a FURG. Am I mistaken? — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:15, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Let's back up a minute. Tags like {{bookcover}} are used once per image and are simply not fair use rationales. A different template like {{logo rationale}} (still under development, out soon), the one at WP:FURG, or a completely hand-written justification, is a fair use rationale. You need one of those for every use of the image. So a non-free image has one license tag plus one justification per use in an article. A competent fair use rationale is a competent fair use rationale, whatever it takes to put the words on the page. But if it makes anyone happy, the very minimum I've been able to reduce it to is a user-entered parameter for the name of the article, plus the presence of mind to choose the right template and verify that the argument fairly describes the use. That's for some classes of images; for others there are a more things the user will have to do. I'm still making improvements to this one, and I'll have some more templates out soon. A point of clarification that may simply be a matter of semantics: merely decorative uses are never sufficient to qualify for fair use. A book cover used properly on the article about the book goes beyond decorative; it serves to identify the book. Decoration is pictures of little birds lining the margins or something, or a picture of the bust of the author in an article about a book. Book covers turn out to be a much bigger challenge than logos, btw. Albums too. Whereas most Wikipedians seem to have the hang of using a logo properly, there are a lot of improper uses of album covers out there, for example as the main picture in an article about the artist. In cases where there's a fundamental flaw in the licensing, replaceability, usage, etc., my templates aren't going to help. These are only for rehabilitating the legitimate images without a proper fair use tag Wikidemo 13:42, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

{{Backmasked-f}} and {{Backmasked-f}} are additional examples of fair use rationale templates. Λυδαcιτγ 17:26, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Is this a sufficient rationale, and can it be improved?

I wrote a rationale for Image:Pennsylvania Herald.png. Can I please have some input on whether I can do a better job before I either copy it to other rail logos or template it? --NE2 15:35, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Or would I be better off using Template:Logo rationale once it is completed? --NE2 15:37, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
I have a few quibbles but it's better than most out there. If you don't have one now I would use it for now. My template will handle historical logos but I can't give you a guarantee yet on something I haven't finished and the community has not yet embraced. If you could hang on for just a few.... Wikidemo 16:44, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Template rationales -- corporate logos and other common uses

I have created the first of a planned series of these, {{Template:logo fur}}. They are an extension of {{Template:Non-free media rationale}}. Full usage instructions are on the template. The simplest of all uses is just an article name. The rationale tag looks like this: 

{{logo fur Article = xxxdxxxx}}

To avoid two discussions at once, here is my announcement, with more details and a request for help / input, at Wikipedia_talk:Non-free_content#Fair_use_rationale_for_logos_-_Template_is_ready Wikidemo 06:10, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

You don't like fair use rationales, do you? It's better to help people comply with WP:NFCC 10(c) by actually having legitimate fair use rationales than to use it as cover for purging Wikipedia of images. Wikidemo 14:15, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Not using it as a plug. It's just depressing me the lengths people are willing to go to in order to make articles pretty. --Durin 14:18, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
I suppose it comes from us thinking about how best to serve our readers. Tim Vickers 21:01, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Should we start using Template:Logo fur, or are there still issues?

If I use Template:Logo fur, is there still a possibility that it will be deleted and I will have to redo the work? --NE2 23:38, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I hope we don't get into edit wars over it like the album one. Logos are simpler, less controversial, and less frequently misused than album covers. But the template could still use some improvement. It's always up to the person using it to make sure it fits. Most all of the real logos appear in business infoboxes or at the top of business pages. Logos also delineate products and brands, not just companies. A handful of things marked as logos aren't really logos, they're advertising images, trade dress, pictures of somebody's sign or storefront, etc. So you don't want to just slap a fair use rationale on if the image is improper in the first place. Let me take a quick look and maybe edit a little, then I'll stand back and let people have their way with the template. Wikidemo 00:03, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
Well any changes to the template would be propagated; I'm just making sure that it won't be deleted, making my tagging work for naught. I would be using it for railroad logos like Image:Erie Herald.png and toll road logos like Image:Garden State Parkway shield.png. --NE2 00:53, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
I updated it to incorporate some of the changes people made to Template:album cover fur, such as insisting that you either type in one of the predefined uses or else hand-type a complete purpose for the use. That's as far as I'll take it. I left a sample rationale in the discussion pages for each of the two images you mention. You should take a look and see how comfortable you are with them. You already have a brief rational for the Erie Railroad. If you are going to use them for the railroad heralds I would go into a little more detail, probably in the "Other" field, describing what heralds are as you do on that page. Feel free to use it, but I can't make any promises for what other Wikipedians might do. Hopefully the template will be stable and people won't commit any vandalism, blanking, etc. Wikidemo 02:12, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
At worst, it'll be AFD'd and you'll have to subst the copies. I'd say go ahead. Λυδαcιτγ 02:33, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I didn't know that template existed. Can someone check the rationales I put on the images at EMBO journal & reports. Thanks. One problem was that I was editing that page, but didn't realise the images had been tagged until I happened to glance at the talk page. There should really be a notice on the article page as well. Carcharoth 00:01, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

is there a place to report over-keen and/or incompetent policing of this stuff?

MER-C keeps telling me to add explanations to pages that have explanations and then deleting them. Funnily enough, I do not have enough time to login every day and find out if someone can't take the time to read the explanations I put in, and I have now wasted time I do not have yet again trying to decipher what the heck MER-C wants. It is a real shame to have content / time out of people's lives randomly deleted by someone who can't take the time to read the pages they delete. I realize there may be something wrong with my interpretation of what comments are needed to explain fair use, but MER-C's comments are completely inaccurate and therefore not helpful.--Jaibe 11:04, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Would you be able to give some examples of the pages you are referring to? --bainer (talk) 13:29, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
(Edit conflict)Maybe you should start by reading this guideline + the policy and look at some examples then (no offence), because you rely don't have any rationales on any of your non-free image uploads. Yes there is a brief summary explaining what the image is and where it came from and what article you intend to use it in, wich is great and all, but it still does not a complete rationale make. The important bit is explaining why it's impossible to create a free licensed work to give the same information, and why that particular image is importnat for the understanding of that particular article and so on. Maybe the standard boilerplate message could be improved to make it more clear though. Would be nice if you could give us some input on why you found the message he posted confusing or misleading so we can improve it. --Sherool (talk) 13:33, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Adding a rationale to an image

Is it acceptable for a user to add a fair use rationale to a fair use image uploaded by another user, i.e. to prevent it from being speedily deleted? --Temporarily Insane (talk) 21:05, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Of course it is. Garion96 (talk) 21:15, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
Okay, thanks. --Temporarily Insane (talk) 22:17, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Would appreciate pairs of eyes

Hiya. An editor posted an RfC request that relates to fair-use rationales. There hasn't been any action on it from the RfC folks, and I figure the people monitoring this talk page might have a worthwhile two (or three...) cents to contribute. Anyhow, here is the link to the RfC request/summary. --05:52, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

(The section header is not intended to dissuade the comments of one-eyed and/or blind editors. Four-eyed glasses wearers and three-eyed monocle users, please also offer thoughts.) --05:53, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

What are we really accomplishing here?

We ask for a rationale because we're trying to avoid utterly bogus copyright violations. But demanding a rationale isn't having that effect: People are simply copying the example text or making their own boilerplates and not even thinking about it.

Beyond not having the desired effect, the automatic demanding of rationales is actively causing harm. Images are left with inaccurate and misleading rationales, and people are becoming increasingly angry at the image clean up process and its imposition of seemingly random rules, and as a result they are rallying against our strong preference for free content because the way we're going about cleanup is, frankly, maddening. Hell, we've got Wikimedia Foundation Board members vandalizing the userpages of people doing cleanup work[4]!

Furthermore, once someone has gone through the work of complying with our byzantine demand that they fill out form XBR4932 in triplicate they feel that we are obligated to keep their upload.

It's just not working.

So lets only demand rationales where the image is involved in a dispute between humans, and when we demand them we should always make sure they are good and that they make sense if we accept them. --Gmaxwell 12:54, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I actually agree with this. IRL, you use a fair use rationale to defend copyright infringement in court. How about on Wikipedia we use it to defend copyright infringement when people disagree? MessedRocker (talk) 13:31, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree with your assessment of the state of affairs (many people are giving crap rationales, much wailing and gnashing of teeth), but I don't see how removing requirements is going to help people do better at uploading non-free content. We need to find ways to get people to make good rationales, and really we need to improve the way we handle uploading in general. We've already learnt some lessons from the Commons:Upload system, but if there are improvements to be made as to instructions on rationales, then let's do that. --bainer (talk) 14:29, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
Hm. Well, my view is in the cases which are clearly okay, the rationale is going to be so obvious and so repetitive that no one is going to want to type it in again... Thats why you end up seeing rationale info in the copyright templates and no one is going to want to just repeat the same information as the template.
We don't really want rationales: we want images whos status under our policy and under the law is so simple and clear that no one would question it.
So really it's a question of how to better educate uploaders. One idea thats long been floated on commons is creating a copyright quiz for new users and not allowing them to upload until they complete it correctly. The idea is widely supported on commons, but no one has implemented it yet.
I think a quiz might be easier for us than commons. We only have one language to worry about, and I think questions about fair use are easier than copyright in general (for freely licensed stuff we have to get people to wrap their heads around what is a derivative).
If someone can come up with the quiz questions, I can code a kludgethe software to make it happen. Think that would help?--Gmaxwell 14:40, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
Really that stuff should be taken out of the templates, they're for categorisation and to provide a machine-readable way for identifying non-free material (so that reusers can strip it out) and they should all be reduced to just that.
People will just (and are just) creating another set of templates to include or subst in that include the rationale text. In clear cases it just doesn't differ all that much. Can you actually show me evidence that the demand to show rationales is actually increasing the quality of the uploads? All I can see it increasing is frustration and Wikilawyering. We've now got a huge base of people with a vested interest in filling out these silly little forms and arguing away people trying to delete images on those grounds. --Gmaxwell 15:48, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
But that's a different topic; on the quiz idea, I know that people like Pfctdayelise have supported that kind of thing in the past, though it hasn't got much traction; you could try talking to them. There have been a few mailing list threads (on wikien-l and commons-l) on the topic over the years, I'll see if I can dig any of them up to provide ideas. --bainer (talk) 15:20, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I did say that it's an old idea. It's just that no one has agreed to do it... I don't know that it's a different topic. Demanding rationales for images whos policy/fair use justification is obvious to anyone clueful isn't helping us achieve our goals of a more justified image collection. So instead we should find something else which will help. --Gmaxwell 15:48, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

My favourite rationale is in Image:Saddam Hussein on his throne.jpg, where it says: "Significance. This content contributes significantly to that article or those articles in the following way(s): it shows how easily he sat on his throne." I recently removed it from the article about the year 2006! ElinorD (talk) 16:01, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to this at all. There will never be a time when random "drive-by" users give us a rationale in the way that the current system requires. Content-specific type users also clearly do not agree with our stringent requirements on rationale uniqueness for image types that they upload probably hundreds of and completely satisfy WP:NFCC and could use the same rationale. (see the fights regarding {{logo fur}} etc). The previous policy does nothing but incite anger at all of our image policies. I think we have inadvertently created a system that only the wiki-bureaucrats can tolerate. A recent presentation at wikimania is particularly interesting here. It's not specifically dealing with images, but from their results, fully 50% of content edits come from outside the community. Very few content edits come from people who might argue on WP:FURG for example, no offense to ourselves. :) We have to take that into consideration. People that make articles on stamps, or albums, etc do not see the logic in spending that much time writing specific rationales for each image, and frankly maybe there isn't much logic in it. Whether we institute a quiz or not I'm ambivalent, we would get a lot less images if we did, including a lot less good ones. I think our system now isn't so bad, much better than it was a year or so ago. We do delete a lot of images, but in my experience the majority are images from people not coming back anyway. - cohesion 16:33, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
Agreed, but the Foundation's licensing policy has been interpreted to call for rationales in every case of fair use ("Media used under EDPs are subject to deletion if they lack an applicable rationale."). So this will ultimately have to be taken up with the Foundation. Of course, getting grassroots support here first is going to be critical for a change to be made. Λυδαcιτγ 23:58, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
The text of the resolution suggests that they are using rationale to mean that a reason exists, not that it's written down. Why else would they call for a "discussion process where it is determined whether such a rationale exists?" If the question is whether there is a written rationale or not there is no discussion. Discussion can only mean a process of inferring whether an image is justified. At any rate, the resolution does not preclude us from simply flagging obvious cases as obvious, or sorting the obvious cases among several specific categories and tagging them that way. That would be of far more use to the downstream re-user. Wikidemo 00:17, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Exactly. Nowhere in Foundation:Resolution:Licensing policy does it say that we must explicitly spell out the rationale on every single image description page. The purpose of the foundation's licensing policy is mainly to define what constitutes an acceptable reason or rationale to include non-free content, and what does not. —Remember the dot (talk) 01:22, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, no, it doesn't explicitly say that rationales are needed on every page, just that rationales are needed on every page that is to avoid deletion. "Media used under EDPs are subject to deletion if they lack an applicable rationale." If media doesn't have a rationale accompanying it, it's subject to deletion. --bainer (talk) 08:12, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
That's the point. It doesn't say rationales are text descriptions that have to be appended to every page. Note how you had to add "accompanying it" to force one particular interpretation, which is not in the wording of the resolution. Wikidemo 08:38, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
It also doesn't say is has to be written one off for each image by a user. All our non-free content tags have rationale text. Sometimes they don't apply to the actual use of the work on Wikipedia... in those cases we should have additional rationale material, but those cases are rare. There must be a rationale for every use, but I don't see why it needs to be explicly stated, nor why common use cases can't be covered by templates. --Gmaxwell 16:00, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't have a lot of experience with image copyright issues, but it seems to me that one excellent reason for an explicit rationale is to make sure that if an image is permissible in a particular article people don't start using it in other articles where it wouldn't be justified under our policy. For example, if you have a non-free image of a CD cover, and it goes in the article about that particular CD, you don't want someone inserting that image into the article about Princess Eugenie, to illustrate the claim that one of the songs on that CD is her favourite song. Some of the standard fair use tags have a sort of rationale built in, as you point out. For example, {{Non-free album cover}} has "solely to illustrate the audio recording in question", yet people use it for galleries in articles about bands. An specific handwritten rationale for each use would seem to discourage that. By the way, would it be possible to edit the fair use tags so that at least the name of the article is named in them? For example, if you feel that an album cover should be allowed under fair use in the article about that particular album, could the coding in {{Non-free album cover}} be altered so that people could put something like {{Non-free album cover|Yellow Submarine (album)}}? ElinorD (talk) 21:29, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Before this policy change, some users would upload images under bad claims of fair use. Now, after this policy, those users are continuing to upload images under bad claims of fair use and writing poor rationales to justify them, while the users who were uploading valid fair use images are being required to add extra verbage that doesn't aid the claim of fair use.
A better solution for educating new users has already been implemented. Wikipedia:Upload does a great job of explaining the non-free content policy. We can tweak the instructions if they're unclear. —Remember the dot (talk) 22:08, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Your suggestion of modifying the image copyright templates is interesting, but it would still add unnecessary hassle and would not prevent the images from being used inappropriately. —Remember the dot (talk) 22:16, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
There's a lot of interesting points made in this discussion, I think it's a proposal that's worth considering. If implemented, it would save a lot of work for a lot of people tagging, notifying, arguing, deleting, scripting, and allow us to concentrate our efforts on the important areas: disputed images. It would also eliminate a lot of the headache I mentioned at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content#Image tagging needs to change. In quite a few cases, rationales are nearly identical, whether this is done in good faith or not. The current model is reducing fair use, yes, but at what cost in terms of editors and work? It's almost as if we were to nominate every new article for speedy deletion, and somehow expect the (often new) author to somehow effectively argue for its inclusion; new page patrolling has realized they need only concentrate on problematic pages. Something to consider, anyway. – Luna Santin (talk) 00:08, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

ElinorD, I agree with your suggestion... back when the boilerplate rationale fair use tags were first being created I advocated that we intead use a tag like this for non-free images. Also, take a look at {{Non-free allowed in}} and the example at the bottom. That tag was a later attempt of mine at creating something with a per article permission which could be added in addition to the standard tags. I also includes that idea that rather than providing a full rationale the user could provide a simple one line description of the purpose of the image, something which we'd likely have better luck at getting from people. Thoughts? --Gmaxwell 15:24, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Ugh I just found out that BetaCommand is planning on having his bot go tag and uploader warn on all instances of non-free images whos image descriptions don't mention the article they are used in tonight[5]... I'm trying convince him to hold off a bit but I don't know if I will. :-/ --Gmaxwell 16:28, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
I've started a proposal at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content#A rational change (pun intended). Your comments are welcome. —Remember the dot (talk) 16:50, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
I always assumed from the noticeboard discussion that the plan was only to tag images with no fair use rationales, but that "Phase 2" is that subset of such images that don't mention where the image is used either. If so it's just a continuation of what is already taking place. If he means to tag images that don't mention what page they're used on, even if they do have fair use rationales, that is a different story entirely. Wikidemo 17:01, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the original idea: Don't demand these multipart forms in triplicate unless someone actually thinks they are necessary. I don't think requiring a rationale was actually a consensus decision. It evolved out of deletionists frustration with not being able to blow everything away, They took it out on the nonfree templates, which now all say a rationale is required in every case. Fuck that. ←BenB4 23:26, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Bluap's revert

At the same time as posting this message, Gmaxwell made a major change to the guideline, to say that rationales are only required "when the status of the work has been called into question". I have reverted this change (without prejudice) for the time being, since I feel that such a major change in policy must reach consensus on the talk page _before_ being altered in the Guideline. Bluap 14:03, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

"It was a change" Isn't a valid reason to revert a change, especially on a guideline page. Generally the expectation is that guideline pages are open to editing, and discussion happens to resolve disputes. Thus far no one has disputed the material content of my change.
This page was made into a guideline just a couple of months ago without any active support. I'm going to revoke the 'guideline' status of the page, since there isn't a clear current consensus for it to be one.--Gmaxwell 14:06, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
This page was created to offer advice on how to create rationales, given that they have always been a requirement under the non-free content policy (and all previous names thereof). As such, whatever label you want to use for this page is not really of any consequence. --bainer (talk) 14:32, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
Agreed - this is only a help page for writing rationales. Disagreement about the policy requirement for use rationales should probably go to the policy page. Encouraging people to not write rationales on this page only makes it more likely that their images will be deleted. Videmus Omnia Talk 14:38, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

It's an interesting proposal that bears further discussion. Don't the policy and guideline pages for non-free content say that a rationale is needed in every case, and if so, wouldn't a change have to spring from there? I do think there are many obvious cases and that the right thing to do is categorize those cases rather than delete images or make busy-work for people to write rationales, particularly for legacy photos. I would favor some way to collect and accurately categorize them, more than simply leaving the purpose of use obvious but implicit. Wikidemo 17:04, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I think before any such change were made, we should speak to the Foundation for clarification on whether their licensing policy requires an explicit rationale on each image page. If the answer is "yes, it does", then the discussion here would be moot. Seraphimblade Talk to me 09:27, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Even if it did, I've see nothing that implies that boiler plate the rationale provided by a template, if it's actually valid, would be insufficient for the requirements of the foundation licensing policy. For many works (such as {{Non-free album cover}} and {{Non-free logo}}) it would not be unreasonable the templates themselves to provide a reasonable explination of the rationale to cover the typical uses of these works. Of course, the use still has to fit the rationale... but our expirence shows that demanding a rationale text to be provided by the uploader isn't helping us get rationale text that makes sense.--Gmaxwell 15:58, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Agreed, mostly. Let's face it, though there's a possibility an image will be used more than once, the reality is that nearly all are uploaded for a single article and never used elsewhere, so the copyright tag and the rationale can be added in a single step that could be part of the upload wizard. That would make the process easier to understand and follow, particularly for the newbies. However, we still have to leave the door open for images to be used in multiple articles so we do need a way to permit multiple justifications per image. Also, with a logo for instance, images covered by a single copyright tag could encompass a variety of uses. A logo could be used to identify a company (or a brand, a product, or an item of public infrastructure such as a road) in the head infobox of an article about the item in question, or the identifying use could be in an article about a wider subject, etc. Album covers may be used in articles about the album, or they may be used (subject to our limits on extent of non-free use) in articles about the artist (in which case they may illustrate the album, or where there are no free equivalents, the band itself), or the genre or era of music. Each of these is a different kind of use that is not fully conveyed by the copyright tag alone. To avoid a proliferation of different tags we could create rationale tags to go along with each copyright tag. It would take a little thought to go through the mechanics.
Regarding the Foundation, I agree that if they're willing to respond it's better to ask them directly rather than to speculate about what they intended. I would broaded the question to something like this: In routine cases of non-free content use, such as using a logo to identify a company in the infobox of an article about the company, or an official film poster to identify a film in an article about the film, assuming the image has the proper copyright tag and source information:
  • Must the rationale be written anew each time for these cases or may we instead tag the rationale as belonging to a category, with the option to add any special information on a case-by-case basis?
  • If categorization alone is sufficient, must we affix the rationale to each image for each use or may we leave that implicit?
  • In cases such as historical photographs, photographs of contemporary artworks, photos of deceased individuals, etc., where we think some case-by-case information is inevitable, may we signify with a tag or leave implicit that portion of the rationale that is common to each use?
Wikidemo 16:49, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
FYI--Gmaxwell 14:43, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Moving towards agreement argument

It seems like there is general agreement that for at least some groups of images standardized rationals would be acceptable. These could be templates or possibly be recoded in some centralized location. There is some disagreement about whether the EDP requires a text rationale on each image page, and the related idea of not including written rationales on image description pages. Is there any strong opposition to the idea that standardized rationales are ok for some images? - cohesion 01:27, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

The templates being proposed are semi-standardized, and we really need to emphasize that the person using the template has parameters to select in order for it to be valid. From a technical standpoint, I don't have a major objection to it, but I think in the real world we have a very high abuse potential with such templates. I also feel the discussion is putting way to much emphases on making the process easy, rather than accurately evaluating image use. In a perfect world, it works, but this isn't a perfect world. Our goal isn't to keep as many non-free images as possible, it's to weed out the unnecessary ones, but still making it reasonable for legitimate uses. For some images a semi-standard template might be able to do both, and if so, great. We need more discussion and more tweaking before actually encouraging the use of such templates. -- Ned Scott 04:25, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
And for the record, I disagree to any form of standardization of nonfree image rationales. I also disagree to any "blanket" allowance of nonfree images in a class of articles. A fair-use rationale should show why this image as used in that article passes these requirements. It shouldn't just say "Well it's an album article, we always do that!". Seraphimblade Talk to me 16:47, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
That position makes no sense to me, and is out of tune with the copyright laws that underly our concern for non-free images. If we take a very narrow example, it is unnecessary to say the least to require a person to make an argument for why the Miami Dolphins logo belongs in the Miami Dolphins article that is distinct from the argument for why the Chicago Bears logo belongs in the Chicago Bears article. Actually if you look at Image:MiamiDolphins.png and Image:ChicagoBears 1000.png the rationales are perfunctory cut and paste jobs anyway. They are by definition standardized, as are all rationales, they just aren't automated or categorized. The only thing ad-hoc rationale creation seems to buy us is a lot of unhelpful rationales. Wikidemo 17:15, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
I could not agree with this more strongly. Maybe we should ask Mike Godwin to weigh in so we can move forward? -- But|seriously|folks  17:46, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, do remember intentionally invoking good old Godwin voids the whole thing. :) But as to Wikidemo's posting here, I believe I see the confusion here. We don't just want to follow the law. Our nonfree image requirements are deliberately and intentionally much stricter than what we could legally use. The reason for that is that this is a free content project, and the intent is that the vast majority of our content should be free, with very limited exception. We refuse a lot of things which would be perfectly legal (Wikipedia only permission, noncom/educational only, use but no modification, etc.), because those are not free licenses. Seraphimblade Talk to me 17:56, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
There is no issue here other than law. That's what free use is, free of legal restrictions. Content, copyrighted or not, that has no legal restrictions on use is in fact free content. You're confusing the attempt to be more restrictive than the law requires with there being a purpose other than the copyright. When you forget that, it just becomes deleting images for the sake of deleting images. An ad-hoc handwritten rationale in each case does nothing to serve the goal of ensuring that content is free to us as well as potential re-users. Even if we had some goal other than avoiding copyright restrictions, I see no benefit to it. It's just busywork. Wikidemo 18:09, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
"Free content" and "free from legal restrictions" are not the same thing. If they are, then let's go ahead and scrap every bit of "non-free" content. Consensus, which has gone as far as renaming most misguided invocations of "fair use" from our vernacular, does not agree with you on that point. Our standard for free content is much stronger than "will it ever get us in legal trouble?" - and this is a good thing, in my opinion, and I believe consensus reflects this. (ESkog)(Talk) 18:31, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
ESkog is dead on here: Wikidemos statement is incorrect. I can tell you with confidence that that Wikimedia Foundation would forcefully reject the notion that "There is no issue here other than law". See this board statement for a explanation of the thinking that went into the licensing policy.
At the same time Seraphimblade's up thread position isn't right either. We're wasting everyone's time if we require extensive work to include images that we are going to accept. Valid image should be easy to add, invalid images should be easily and frequently removed.--Gmaxwell 18:44, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
Kat Walsh's statement proves my point: free content is that which has "no significant legal restriction on people's freedom to use, redistribute, or modify the content for any purpose." The definition I quoted form earlier is this one, nearly identical, which the Board cites in its resolution and has been at issue in every significant debate on the matter. The point is these are legal restrictions. The reason our restrictions are more stringent than the law requires of us, as is explained constantly, is that we are considering possible down-stream users who modify the images, use them in different contexts, and/or are operating in different jurisdictions. Suggesting that non-free images should be restricted for reasons other than the legal ones goes beyond the goals of free content and the resolution of the board, and to the extent it interferes with producing a good encyclopedia it collides against the mission of Wikipedia. You'll find no consensus for the proposition that images that can be re-used by anyone for any purpose despite their copyright should be deleted. Again, making people write unique, handwritten, ad-hoc, non-templated rationales does not make the images any more legal for us, nor does jumping through those hoops make them any more free for our re-users. Those are two separate arguments. Wikidemo 19:04, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
I am having trouble figuring out what you're trying to say, so let me make a simple statement: any media that is not licensed under one of the licenses that meets the free content definition at freedomdefined.org (or is not copyrightable, or in the public domain) is not considered free media for the purposes of use on Wikimedia. It is Wikimedia's position that use of non-free media should be restricted for reasons other than legal ones; our mission is also to encourage the development of free educational content. Kat Walsh (spill your mind?) 19:43, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for weighing in on this. The definition above is certainly more specific than the ones that refer to "no significant legal restriction." If we adopt and reference that as our official definition of fair use, that will end some of the debate. I and others have argued that because nothing (copyrighted or not) is ever without legal restriction, and because some copyrighted images are as re-usable as they come, properly categorizing and tagging images will go farther towards allowing people to re-use Wikipedia content than will overly detailed and rule-bound attention to individual instances of non-free use. However, I agree that if the goal is to encourage people to produce original content, release it to the public domain, or license it under an applicable license, that is a non-legal goal. The other half of my argument stands, that we're not supporting that goal either by unduly complicated legalistic rules and rationales. The question there is, how likely is it that a free use could be found, created, or released, that would serve the educational purpose of the article? That would suggest a tilt in the rationales, if we keep them, to answering that question rather than the fair use components like purpose and character of use, portion used, etc. We can both assure legal compliance and encourage more free content without requiring ad-hoc, individually created uwe rationales Wikidemo 20:19, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
I told you so. ;) This is what I was trying to geat across in the "spirit" discussion on Wikpedia:Non-free content. I'm sorry I was unclear. If the definition of free content stuff is new to you you'll also want to read the foundation licensing policy. After working on this subject for a number of years I fear that I've lost the ability to express some of the basic point clearly, I'm sorry about that. I'm glad that this is cleared up now.--Gmaxwell 20:41, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
"If we adopt and reference that as our official definition of fair use, that will end some of the debate." Um, do you not get it? This is, and always has been our official definition of fair use. I can only assume at this point that you are intentionally trying to twist and misrepresent the situation to suggest that this was never official when it has been all along. -- Ned Scott 23:20, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
Should I remind you of civility again, or would you prefer I remind you to assume good faith? Wikidemo 02:52, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
AGF only applies when you don't have a valid reason to think otherwise. You're a smart guy who's become very familiar with the policy, and you continue to act dumb on a number of issues. It's misleading, and I don't understand what you hope to gain from it. -- Ned Scott 03:00, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Are you accusing me of acting in bad faith? You seem to be in a mood right now, here and elsewhere. You've been uncivil to me before. Please, take a deep breath and remember we're all here because we want to be. Wikidemo 03:04, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
You appear to be acting in bad faith. You appear to be wikilawyering and trying to game the system. I am pointing this out because it is disruptive behavior, and doing so is not being uncivil. -- Ned Scott 03:08, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I am getting a bit worked up. I do not know if you are doing this intentionally or not. -- Ned Scott 03:19, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks! I can assure you that I only want what's best for Wikipedia and all its editors and readers. I'm editing lots of articles and often taking my own pictures to add to the public domain. I'm not a big user of non-free content, except logos for my articles about companies and the occasional wine bottle label. Other than the occasional mistake, which I try to quickly correct, it's not my images at stake. I consider Wikipedia the most important reference work ever created, and potentially a good source of reusable content. I'm pleased as punch that free content, which was relatively obscure and marginal only a few years ago, is happening on such a big scale as an alternative to copyright. There is a legitimate discussion to be had about the role of fair use and copyleft in empowering the people of the world with information. I see some on flights of what looks like doctrinaire rule making and enforcement that seems to forget our mission and be quite disruptive, and so I question whether some things are really policy, agreed to, or in the best interest of the project. I don't think earnest questioning can be bad faith, and on many points where you disagree with me you'll probably find my opinion widespread. I certainly am not doing it to play devil's advocate or to advance some other agenda. We're all on the same team, no?Wikidemo 04:13, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

[unindent from above] Regardless of the past dust-ups we have been in on all sides of this, it seems that we are as close as we've ever been to a fairly broad-based common ground. I know I've not always been immune to incivility throughout this; it happens - the important thing is that we seem to be close to a clear, easy-to-follow policy which still upholds all of the Foundation's mission. Let's try not to lose sight of that. (ESkog)(Talk) 04:06, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay, now that I had a chance to read this discussion, it seems clear that the EDP does not require text rationales on each image page. We should not either, except at best in nonstandard cases where the matter is subject to reasonable disagreement. Common rationales ought to be standardized and referenced, rather than affixed, to the image pages. CSD I6 and NFCC #10c ought to be deleted or changd to reflect this, but in the meanwhile there is nothing in policy that requires the rationales on each image page to be in text form or hand-written. We only have some people arguing vehemently that this is what the Foundation requires, which turns out not to be the case. Wikidemo 17:36, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't be in support of removing the inline rationales in the templates.--Gmaxwell 18:44, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
We should create rationales for all the common justified use scenarios as part of our EDP. In some cases those rationales will be complete or nearly complete; in others they will only be partial and require additional information on a case-by-case basis. Every use of an image in an article should be supported either by reference to an EDP rationale, with any required information provided, or a statement of why it fits the non-free use policy despite not cleanly fitting into a category of use. We should categorize this as much as possible, and avoid case-by-case restatement of matters that are common to all of the images in a category. Wikidemo 19:10, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
We pretty much have this already, as part of the Non-free templates[6]. One of the things on my todo list is to change all the non-free templates so that they build themselves our of a single meta-template so the broad rationale is only encoded once. It's useful to have it on the image page because it makes it clear to anyone who clicks on the image that it's not free content like the rest of Wikipedia. It also cuts off some number of complaints by would-be copyright complainers. It's good for user education, harmless to have it encoded there, and it creates no work for people adding images. --Gmaxwell 19:55, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
The use-rationales was a part of the policy long before the Foundation made their statement, so no, not having their support does not suddenly invalidate the long-standing requirement. -- Ned Scott 23:35, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

When the heck was this added

Ned Scott asks this question, perhaps rhetorically, in removing the "proposed" guideline tag and restoring this to a guideline page. Without taking any position whatsoever on the merits, the answer is August 5, in this edit. If you look a couple posts down under "Bluap's Revert" (above), Gmaxwell comments, "This page was made into a guideline just a couple of months ago without any active support. I'm going to revoke the 'guideline' status of the page, since there isn't a clear current consensus for it to be one." This had something to do with the issue of whether we should require written rationales in all cases. Cheers. Wikidemo 02:02, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Well, considering the bulk of it was simply taken from the image help page that everything linked to, and accurately describes the process, I'm not sure I understand the objection. See #A little history on FURG. This is pretty much the same information we've been advising users to go to long before it was on this page (it's actually transcluded so it updates to its old location on Help:Image page#Fair use rationale as well). It seems to me that the guideline tag was removed over the dispute about if a rationale is actually required or not, rather than how to write a rationale. -- Ned Scott 06:11, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
Wow I think Ned and I have seen this come full circle now, Wikipedia_talk:Non-free_use_rationale_guideline#Making_a_guideline and [7]. I think it should be a guideline, whatever it says, because otherwise it's status is just confusing. I do agree in the current discussion though that unique rationales shouldn't be required on all images classes. But, I don't see these two things as being the exclusive. I think this should be a guideline, and I think it should say some images can use standard rationales. I think Gmaxwell just made it a proposal while it was in flux, which is probably a good idea. :) - cohesion 01:04, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
We need a tag like {{advice}} or something like that. This page offers suggestions for how to comply with the requirement which is (and always has been) part of the main policy. In a couple of discussions above, there seems to have been some confusion, and suggestion that the requirement originated from this page. Clearly labelling this as advice might help to reduce confusion. Perhaps we should even consider moving it into the help namespace? --bainer (talk) 03:14, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
I dunno, isn't that what a guideline is? A suggestion? I agree this should never be considered policy, but beyond that I don't have any strong feelings. To me help is more straightforward though, like how to use user scripts, how to change your signature etc. This certainly stems from policy, so to me guideline is the most appropriate. The guideline text says things about common sense, and occasional exceptions. Maybe I have a less-strict view of guidelines than consensus though. - cohesion 03:06, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
That's what I was thinking, we're basically describing a guide.. so it makes sense to call it a guideline. I do think there is a how-to tag, though, if that will make people happy. -- Ned Scott 03:10, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Need help on Licensing

Hi, when you use the {{Non-free album cover}} license on album covers do you still have to add a Fair Use rationale to be able to use it in the albums page? I always thought that the template itself was the rationale. The template states:

"It is believed that the use of low-resolution images of such covers solely to illustrate the audio recording in question, on the English-language Wikipedia, hosted on servers in the United States by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law."

So do you stil need a rationale?

Thanks! --¤ The-G-Unit-฿oss ¤ 19:49, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, yes. —Remember the dot (talk) 20:06, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
But the template has it all in it. Theres loads, like loads of album covers which dont have a rationale with them. (btw thanks for speedy reply)--¤ The-G-Unit-฿oss ¤ 20:09, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
I asked at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content#A rational change (pun intended) to change the policy to not require extra rationales. Based on this discussion, I made the change, but was reverted. So, basically, few agree with the policy, but somehow it remains in place. —Remember the dot (talk) 20:28, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

So basically you are supposed to still have a rationale but nobody actually does and most admins dont mind? --¤ The-G-Unit-฿oss ¤ 21:10, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Essentially, a small number of overzealous users are tagging images for deletion based on lack of rationales, and the admins are supporting it despite lack of widespread support for the policy. Maybe you'd like to petition to change the policy. —Remember the dot (talk) 04:08, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I would support replacing the current {{Non-free album cover}} with the one Wikidemo made, thus requiring only one template. If the template is configurable, one can argue that the configuration is an individual rationale for a given situation/article. -- Ned Scott 20:35, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

OK. So,
  • How are you planning to explain this new procedure to users?
  • How are you going to deal with templates that use the numbered parameters for other uses, such as categorization?
  • What are you going to do with all the legacy images that this shift in policy would create?
These questions need to be answered, and answered well, before we can implement that change. The change you propose also would not require extra rationales, so I really don't see why you're opposed to eliminating the rationale requirement. —Remember the dot (talk) 00:04, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
This will be a major task, and I firmly believe this is the future of fair use tagging on Wikipedia. We can make a guide for uploading, we can make many options in many templates and have custom overrides, we can update old images. The new system will be the rationale itself, as it would require the uploader to make a statement about the use of the image, but in the form of multiple choice instead of essay. A rationale will always be required, and we will require uploaders to accurately evaluate the use and need for non-free images. -- Ned Scott 04:11, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

All we want to do is eliminate the need for a rationale when the {{Non-free album cover}} license is used right? --¤ The-G-Unit-฿oss ¤ 10:29, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I would like to eliminate the need for a separate rationale for {{Non-free album cover}} and other similar "no brainer" templates, yes. —Remember the dot (talk) 17:21, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree. The Foundation resolution says these images have to have a rationale, but it doesn't say it has to be a separate (non-form) rationale. -- But|seriously|folks  17:32, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
OK, I changed it again. We'll see if it sticks this time. —Remember the dot (talk) 21:01, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Just wanted to mention again I made up a proposed template Template:Non-free album cover/proposed a while back (more info), but the conversation seemed to lull. This seems like what gmaxwell and others were talking about. Obviously we would need to make more etc, the change isn't really that big though. Feel free to change it all up if you want of course. - cohesion 02:30, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, you still need to address the 3 issues I brought up above before I would consider this to be an OK option. —Remember the dot (talk) 03:35, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm not pushing for this solution, but it seemed like most people wanted something like this before. Point 1 I think is the most problematic. For 2, which ones use the numbered params for something? This would only be a problem on templates we think are ok for rationales, are there any that would cause a conflict? For 3, it shouldn't cause a problem, the name of the template won't change, and it doesn't require a parameter, so the old ones will just not have a param, it will place them in a tracking category and people can add them if they want, or not. - cohesion 02:30, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
{{Non-free promotional}} and {{Non-free software screenshot}} both have an optional first parameter already. —Remember the dot (talk) 02:53, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Those are named parameters, also it would only matter on the ones that we want to act as rationales, so maybe the software one. Although, I don't think this really matters anymore since this initiative seems to have died :( - cohesion 23:50, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
What we need is a big 'ol structured RFC of some sort to help give some direction for all these rationale things going on now. I was hoping that fair use survey would have filled that job, but I'm not sure how long it will be before it's open. There are some simple situations where traditional FURs probably aren't required, but there are still others that can't be easily described, or have a unique use. A rationale, in some shape or form, is required on all images. Now it's all about finding which images need basic rationales, which ones need detailed ones, and so on. -- Ned Scott 02:04, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
The survey has been marked as historical. Which is good imo, I think it would have turned into a riot rather than a rfc. - cohesion 03:19, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Umm......What?

I may just be a bit naive here, but since I can't understand a word of the article, I've no other place to go. What the heck is this thing talking about?!?? Non-free use ration-what? What are the "rules", or whatever, and what's goin' on? Please, can someone just tell me in a simplified form what the rule her is? Keyblade Mage 01:12, 15 September 2007 (UTC)Keyblade Mage

It may be easier if you ask a specific question. The policy is somewhat complex, and it might be easier to learn about it by taking it "one step at a time" in a way. A good place to ask questions is the media copyright questions page, or feel free to ask at my talk page. - cohesion 03:46, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, I guess I just want to know why we can't use some images, but can use others. I mean, what's the difference between them? And what do we need to be allowed the use of the images? Is there some kind of process, can we only use pictures from certain websites, or can we put on pictures we made, if they're good quality? I don't really get much at all about this. Keyblade Mage 00:06, 18 September 2007 (UTC)Keyblade Mage

Question about multiple article rationales

As currently written, this seems to imply that you need to duplicate the basic statements "This image is low-resolution, a small part of the work, does not impact the owner's ability to make a profit" for each article the images appears in as well as saying why it's necessary for each article. Is that really necessary? I think we could work on a format for rationales that doesn't require this unnecessary duplication while still requiring an explanation of why the image is fair use for each article it appears in. --Random832 14:41, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia_talk:Non-free_content/Archive_26#Question_about_fair_use_rationales_on_images_used_in_multiple_articles, the point of which is that Image:Xmenjimlee.jpg is not in agreement with our current policy. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:47, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
The current "policy" to which CBM refers makes no demands that an image be limited to any particular article in a way that would properly permit deletion advocates to impose the interpretation of CBM and a number of other users upon the participants that wrote the article. The notion of requiring "critical commentary" or otherwise limiting the images use to one particular type of article is actually a "guideline" and not a policy that can be summarily enforced, though attempts have been made to do so by a number of image-deletion advocates. This particular page was summarily raised to the status of "guideline" after discussion by a small group of local "no fair use" advocates. See this edit on 15 January 2007, where User:Angr upgrades from proposed guideline to guideline with the edit summary: "upgrading to guideline -- seems to have consensus on talk page". See also, the history of this page. Only recently, bit by bit, a small cluster of articles at a time, has this been brought to the attention of the broader community.

As to the extra statement currently expected for each use of a particular image, that is still being debated. But for now, it is safest to provide the extra statement of why this image should be used in the additional article where the image is relevant. ... Kenosis 15:50, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't see exactly what you're saying. The policy requires that use of a nonfree image be minimal across all of WP and significant in each location where the image is used. The point of the use rationales is to explain why the use is significant in each location; that's why a separate explanation has been required for each location. These requirements have been in place since at least Jan 2006 [8]; it's not a recent change to the policy. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:01, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
And "minimal" does not mean "in accordance with the decision of people who happen to have made 'no-fair-use' or image deletion their specialty". Once the expectation of "minimal" is made clear around the wiki, it can as easily be decided by article editors as it can by those pushing to delete as many as possible. ... Kenosis 16:08, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
Minimal use is determined, of course, by project-wide consensus. There has been discussion on WT:NONFREE about it, and I'm sure there will be more.— Carl (CBM · talk) 16:22, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
Back to the original question, most images are used only once so it's not an issue. When you use an image twice, you have two different rationales - there are commonalities but also some differences. The prevailing view (but obviously not unanimous) is that it's easier to deal with multiple written statements even if they're redundant than to mash everything into a single statement of rationale. There are inconveniences either way, but a single rationale can get awfully messed up and hard to automate when an image is added and removed from multiple articles over time. People are working on some proposals to take the completely redundant info out, e.g. the portion used and the source. Other stuff isn't always duplicate even when you use the same image. A particular image that doesn't interfere with the original commercial purpose in one article may interfere in another because a big part of the question is how it's used. Wikidemo 08:36, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
So in its current state Image:2099 Unlimited Jan3.jpg should say something like "Displays Hulk 2099. Displays Hulk 2099."? Someone keeps lazily slapping a deletion proposal up on there. -- El benito 17:12, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
Please review WP:NONFREE and WP:FURG for what a rationale should look like. The summary comment above is not even a use rationale, let alone a sufficient one. You can look around for what other people use for comics but note the situation is different for each. One is used for purposes of identifying the subject of the image (much like a book cover). The other is used for commentary about the image itself (I think), in the context of a discussion of various alternate portrayals of the Hulk. Each rationale should include a link to the article where it appears, so it's clear which rationale is for which use. I restored the "no fair use rationale" tag but you should have plenty of time to figure it out or ask for additional suggestions. Wikidemo 17:30, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
The problem seems to me to be that a non-free/fair use image uploaded for a specific purpose is then use elsewhere on WP, with the original rationale no longer applying, which sort of undermines the idea of restricting these sort of images, so therefore the rationale for each separate use of such a picture should be given on the picture page. Some parts of the rationale will largely be the same, as put forth by the original questioner above, but the reasons for using an image may well differ: to illustrate the object in question, to use as an example of the work of the creator, perhaps even to show a certain class of objects.
Is that correct? --Martin Wisse 07:02, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
In general, yes. Consensus, in this case, tends not to be determined by project-wide consensus by article editors, but more by a localized consensus of the users who have participated in making these decisions about which uses will be deemed appropriate non-free/fair-use, on this page, at WP:NFC / WT:NFC and in closing decisions of deletion proceedings (WP:IfD). I've been advocating that the second and third usages just mentioned ("as an example of the work of the creator ... [and] ... to show a certain class of objects") be more explicitly permitted. The recent interpretations of this issue, though, have tended to disagree that these uses are valid non-free/fair-use, instead tending to restrict the use to only the article about the work itself. Presently a number of participants in this quarter of the wiki are working on standardizing the rationales for several important categories of use, especially cover images. The range of permissible use, e.g., in an article about the creator or topic or genre, etc., will need to be discussed. In the meantime, a well written justification will be needed for each use you propose. ... Kenosis 18:28, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Non-template fair use rationale guideline dispute

When I upload a image which is fair use to Wikipedia, I always followed the non-template guidelines on the page which should be acceptable. Now I have found one image to which I have followed this guideline is being deleted under CSD#I6 even though it has a fair use rationale. One person suspects it may be bots which are going through images and any without {{Non-free use rationale}} are being nomiated for speedy deletion. Therefore, if it is the case that pages can be deleted without this template, the non-template section needs to be removed and the community alerted to use the template on images they have uploaded to prevent speedy deletion of other images. --tgheretford (talk) 13:31, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

That is not true. I run the non-free bot, please give me an example of a image that is currently tagged. βcommand 13:39, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
Image:Sky Multichannels.jpg --tgheretford (talk) 14:03, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
I fixed that rationale see [9] you had the wrong page listed in the rationale. βcommand 14:12, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
Strictly it is British Sky Broadcasting (they're the company who ran Sky Multichannels) but thanks for your help. --tgheretford (talk) 14:18, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
Not a problem, when you write rationales please make sure that when you write rationales that you include the article name when writing a rationale. βcommand 14:20, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Using images more than once

If a valid fair use rationale is provided for an image for use in an article, how many times can it be used in that article? ~ Sebi [talk] 00:34, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

You mean using the same image more than once in the same article? If you can explain or link to a page where that happens it might help. I'm having a hard time imagining how this would come up unless you're using it for some kind of decorative border or navigational element, which are both prohibited as per image use policy. Wikidemo 01:01, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
Dream Days at the Hotel Existence, an article about an album, where the fair use image in question is the album cover which is being used first in the infobox, but the cover art section discusses the album cover in detail. ~ Sebi [talk] 04:42, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
I understand. The image appears once on the page but it's used in two senses. I don't know what the exact rule is but I would combine them both in the same rationale. For instance: "the album image is used in the article about the album, both for purposes of identifying the album and also for commentary on the cover art itself." Any other field or query where the multiple purposes comes up, just mention them both. I think that works. Wikidemo 05:36, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
OK, thanks. ~ Sebi [talk] 21:13, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

question

sorry, don't get it. what do you want me to add exactly? thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 16:30, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Use rationale needs to reference US laws, not Wikipedia policy

It's not a question of what the rules are, it's the function of the use rationale. It's for external, not internal consumption.

So please change it back to what it was and no revert warring, okay? Wikidemo 22:48, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't really agree that use rationales are for external consumption. External reusers need to have their own lawyers and make their own decisions; it's not our role to give them legal advice. As I see it, the point of us requiring written rationales is to ensure that there is a sufficiently strong reason to use the image and to ensure that we are following fair use law. I thought that is why they are now called "nonfree use rationales' instead of "fair use rationales". — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:08, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
The foundation resolution doesn't give us any guidance here. My argument is that the text of this statement is for us and downstream users to justify to the outside world why the image is not infringing. So it's necessarily geared to a fair use defense. It's not to justify that the image complies with our policies. A court or outside lawyer considering suing someone for using these free images will not be swayed by what Wikipedia policies are. The only question is whether they're infringing. There's no such thing as a "non-free rationale" defense to copyright infringement. These two examples have stood quite a while. Is this a case where they were just overlooked when we changed the terminology from "fair use rationale" to "non-free use rationale"? Or is this one of those places where the rationale has to interface with copyright law? How is this treated elsewhere in the project where these rationales come up? Wikidemo 23:38, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree an outside lawyer is unlikely to be swayed by the fact an image meets our policies, but why would she pay much attention to our claims that the use is legal? If I were to hire a lawyer to consider suing WP, I would hope that lawyer would use her own understanding of the law, not rely on WP templates. Similarly, if WP is sued, I would expect Mike Godwin to use his knowledge of the law, with the help of some legal research, to craft a defense. So I don't see the templates as being particularly relevant in a legal setting. It isimportant that our policies are tight enough that an image meeting our policies is not likely to be legally dubious, but that's a question for policies, not for licensing templates. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:21, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
A different reason to avoid saying "fair use" very much is that it may give people the impression that any use that meets fair use law is acceptable for WP. It isn't enough for an image to meet fair use requirements, it needs to meet our nonfree image policies. So it makes sense that the rationale should explain why the use meets those policies, not why it meets the requirements of fair use. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:24, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
We should avoid the term "fair use" whenever we can when we are really referring to Wikipedia's non-free content policies. As someone who does a lot of copyvio patrolling, I get enough people telling me "you don't know anything about copyright law, haven't you ever heard of fair use?" as it is. It confuses the issue further if people think they can use images on Wikipedia to the full extent of "fair use" under US law. This is particularly true as most users don't understand what the "free" in "free content" means. Using the term "non-free" draws a much better contrast than "fair use". -- But|seriously|folks  01:40, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
None of that really addresses the question, though. Ultimately the policy is all about fair use, and making sure there is a fair use defense. The rationales themselves are worthless as a defense, true. But they are a check to make sure there is one. Back to my question, how is the wording of these rationales treated elsewhere? In my own use rationales, I try to say both when I'm in the mood to go all the way: "Use of xxxxxxx in the article complies with Wikipedia non-free content policy, and fair use under United States copyright law, as follows." Wikidemo 02:05, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
As I am constantly telling folks over at WP:MCR, ultimately the policy is all about creating a free-content encyclopedia, and fair use, or any non-free media, don't contribute toward that goal. Otherwise why have a policy that's stricter than the law requires? As it is, an image might be perfectly justifiable by law under fair use but still fail the policy. Result? We get a deluge of questions over at MCR about people who don't understand why their uploads are getting speedied because they see "fair use" all over the place and assume that as long as they obey the law in that area they're OK. (Plus they don't read the links in the tags, but lets not go there.) Talking about everything in terms of the non-free media policy (which itself should reference the law) makes for less ambiguity.
A couple of years ago it would have been hard to argue with you. "Fair use" was all anyone talked about. But I disagree that the resolution provides no guidance. They mention the law, but the policy is not made with respect to the law. It's made with respect to the idea of free content. The law enables the use of non-free media; it's the policy that tries to keep a lid on it and which determines which media will go and which will stay. Not that this hasn't been Wikipedia's goal all along, but this refocuses it. TCC (talk) (contribs) 02:48, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
I know all that (although your summary is a little off - the image policy represents a balance of competing goals on Wikipedia) but it still doesn't answer the question. I'm not trying to rehash the issue of why we favor free content, but more specifically, is the rationale explicitly supposed to argue there is no copyright infringement. We can't rest entirely on policy while ignoring the elephant in the room, which is copyright. Again, what is the current practice? If the rationale is expected to argue the legality of the use we're not going to overturn that in a discussion here. If the wording is an aberration as compared to other examples and standards of use rationales then we should bring it into line. The licensing resolution offers zero guidance on what the text of a rationale needs to say.Wikidemo 03:09, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
My understanding (or possibly my interpretation) is that the rationale is supposed to justify the inclusion of a particular non-free image in our free content encyclopedia. It not only has to satisfy copyright law, but also overcome our presumption that non-free content is not permitted, which is a stricter standard. -- But|seriously|folks  03:15, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
I think it's a bit much to expect image uploaders to add a legal argument to the image pages, which is what it amounts to if they're going to "argue no copyright infringement". It's much more reasonable to expect them to argue conformation to the policy, which is written in such a way that any media that does comply with it should be within valid fair use. TCC (talk) (contribs) 22:00, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
There's the rub. The use policy has a goal of keeping the images compliant with the law, but unless we worry about the law sometimes that's not necessarily going to happen. There's no practical way to make conforming with policy any easier or safer than conforming with the law - we run up against all the same subtle issues. In some aspects the policy stands in front of the law, but in others it simply restates or incorporates the law. We're not asking users to argue legalities, but simply to comply with the policy and assert that the image is legal. The US law on copyrights is still in the thick of WP:NONFREE, mentioned many times both as background as also as operative rules. I think it would be a mistake to remove it entirely for a number of reasons. Wikidemo 02:26, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
We're not discussing removing it from the policy, but rather removing it from the model use rationales. There's no reason the policy can't mention fair use law on its own. I would say the policy should mention it somewhere, but not in the model rationales. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:24, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
[undent, to Wikidemo] On what grounds could users make this assertion? Determining valid fair use isn't straightforward. The law itself is vague, and there's not much in the way of caselaw to clarify it apart from certain specific uses like parody. We'd be asking editors to make an assertion where they're not qualified to evaluate whether or not it's true. I know I wouldn't try to decide fair use on my own, aside from those instances where it's relatively clear. Conformation to the policy is no guarantee of fair use, but it's certainly less ambiguous than the law and as it's designed to be more restrictive it will actually result in valid fair use much more often than not. As you say, one of its goals is compliance with the law. Editors should only have to worry about complying with the policy, by virtue of which the burden of complying with the law can be left to Wikipedia. TCC (talk) (contribs) 03:28, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
Current policy and guidelines do currently ask people to mention the law. WP:NFCC 10(c) says the use rationale is for when "fair use is claimed for the item" so that a "fair use defense" can be built for the item. The "acceptable images" section of the WP:NONFREE guideline mentions that images must satisfy both Wikipedia policy and copyright law.
We ask people to comply with the law all the time. Saying that you believe your actions to be legal is not asking for a legal argument. It's asking for an assertion. Masking the law behind a blanket of Wikipedia policy may fill in a few valleys of intricacies but it doesn't affect the broad question of what is legal. People must face the same issues of what is public domain, what is a panorama right, substantiality of use, what does it mean to interfere with commercial opportunities, etc., whether we call it the law or our policy. Users should never lose sight that there is an underlying fair use issue here. If you say they should forget about the law and pay attention only to policy, you lead them astray. You can't ask people to do something by rote without letting them know why they're doing it. If you do, they will step over the bounds of legality because they have no basis for interpreting policy. Wikidemo 04:00, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
I looked for the first quote on the guideline but couldn't find it. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:07, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
(ec) If it says that, it was probably missed when other instances of fair use were replaced. I don't think it's intentional. I would think both of these instances of "fair use" should be replaced with a reference to the non-free content policy. -- But|seriously|folks  04:10, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
It would be clearer if everything were consistent on this point. However, if we take "fair use" out from all these places, we need to add a strong statement that although the policy is designed to go farther than fair use, when interpreting or applying the policy we cannot lose sight of the fundamental issue that use must be legal on Wikipedia, and designed to be free of significant legal restrictions for downstream users.Wikidemo 04:35, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
Policy is designed to ensure two things: (1) make sure the usage is clearly within the legal terms of fair use; (2) make sure no fair-use content is used that might inhibit or compete with the creation of free content. And that's really as much as there is to policy. Everything else is commentary.
These rationales are scarecrows, designed (at least in part) to make busibodies go away. Our basis against such tiresome make-nuisances is U.S. law, not the internal minutiae of Wikipedia policy. Mentioning US Law is therefore no bad thing. But there's room for both. Jheald 16:09, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Standard

What is the standard editing on this:

Please clear. I've been editing this stuff and some users might react. BritandBeyonce (talk•contribs) 12:24, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

There is no particular standard, as long as it's clear what article the rationale is supposed to apply to it's all good. --Sherool (talk) 15:43, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

tag for missing rationale?

Is there a template that I can use for Image:Final Fantasy Tactics Battle Sys.jpg? It's missing a Fair use rationale. I'm asking this here because I feel that non-sysops should have clearer instructions for how to deal with a missing rationale. for the time being I will add a notice on the talk page.-- Thinboy00 talk/contribs 19:14, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

It was uploaded before 2006, so new tag won't work-- Thinboy00 talk/contribs 19:23, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
It would be more helpful to wikipedia to simply provide a fair use rationale (after some judgement), than "tagging" the image because it lacks formal statements in accordance with "current" policy. The persons who worked with that article in 2005 (and uploaded the image) might not be active on Wikipedia today. (Tagging new uploads is of course fine, if they fail to adhere to the current policy). ... For this image the fair-use criteria is rather obvious, so I provided one. Oceanh 23:11, 15 October 2007 (UTC).

Oh for god's sake

What is supposed to be the problem here? It is a play. It is the poster for the play. Dybryd 22:29, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Fixed it. Dr.K. 22:51, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
The problem is that it is missing a "use rationale", which is required once for every time a copyrighted image is used in an article. There are perhaps some better places to ask, but you've found the page here where the requirement is spelled out. Read this page and it will tell you what you need to do. Or if you would rather work by example, find an article about a play or a film where there is a poster used, and take a look at how it's been done. We've all learned. It's not that hard. Wikidemo 02:07, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
It would also not have been that hard for whoever noticed that this obviously legitimate fair-use image was not in compliance with the letter of whatever latest version of pointless, energy-sucking rule-duplication is current at the moment, and add the rationale themselves - a rationale so standardized as to be easily cut and pasted. That would have been a good-faith action, and a one-step process that annoyed nobody. But that's not the point, is it? The point is to make sure that ordinary editors are aware of and inconvenienced by the pointless squabbling that goes on here. Well, success.
Dybryd 19:07, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia has decided to require a use rationale even for obvious cases. At least if it's such a routine case, it's easy to add one. Just copy it from somewhere else. Yes, someone could fix that. But you uploaded it, so the logical person to do it is you. I could have done it but if you're going to be uploading more images it's best that you know - you know, teach a man to fish.....It was tagged automatically by a bot and the bot is not in any position to fix the image, just notice that the rationale is missing and add a tag.Wikidemo 21:59, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

When you selectively delete my text, you distort its meaning. Dybryd 22:44, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Would you rather I deleted the whole thing? I don't see any change in meaning, just a removal of vulgarities directed at Wikipedia policies and whoever is enforcing them. A "thanks for the explanation" would be welcome. I am trying to explain all this, you know. It's a simple bot that's being used to help enforce a rather fundamental policy decision. There's been a lot of contention over it. You're hardly the first person to think it's unwarranted. But there's been a lot of bad will over it, and if people don't make an effort to be civil it tends to erupt in flame wars. Take a look at the bot managers talk page if you want to see some more, User talk:Betacommand. He gets five or ten angry comments a day for the past few months. Wikidemo 00:16, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes, he certainly attracts a lot of anger, as most disruptive editors do. Do you really think a couple of curse-words have any prayer of being as corrosive to the civil atmosphere on Wikipedia as his bot has been? Betacommand is harming collegiality on Wikipedia every day, and he knows exactly how.
The problem would not be difficult to fix if he (and others who are as fussed as he is about media that obviously satisfies fair-use, but was uploaded before their small club of rules-lawyers decided to needlessly complicate procedure) would simply take a little more effort themselves to resolve the problem that they created. Instead, they continue making Wikipedia a little more unpleasant every day, in the same way, for months. At this point, it's difficult for me to assume good faith.
Dybryd 00:51, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
I can sympathise. As one heavily affected by this process I can see Dybryd's point. In fact even though I went through the pain to convert to the new rationale templates, presto!, someone got the bright idea to add the article field. I then had to repair the newly installed templates all over again. It was déjà vu all over again, like a bad case of Yogi Berra. Although extreme expressions elevate the temperature of the debate and normally are not recommended, in this special case they serve to remind us about the pain of a hard working wikipedian as he is being rolled over by robots running amok. Not only running amok but backtracking and changing direction in mid-play for good measure. I think this must be artificial intelligence. Too bad it had to manifest its sadistic side first. Dr.K. 01:58, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
If you just want to vent, fine, as long as you do it without cursing at other Wikipedians. But it's unproductive. Wikipedia require use rationales, even in obvious cases. Allowing images to omit the rationale would mean that there is no automatic way to tell whether someone actually has an obvious rationale or simply failed to add a rationale for a non-obvious case. The presence of the rationale ensures that the user actually has one, and also helps categorize the images. That's the reasoning behind it, and whether you like it or not that's the consensus decision of the community. If you don't like it you can take it up as a policy matter but I don't think you will get far. I can understand a concern about disrupting images. To fill you in, to avoid disruption to old images the two main image bots are not tagging images uploaded before 2007. It's only the newer images, and I think it's reasonable to ask anyone uploading a new image now to comply with the policy. There are also efforts afoot both to simplify the rationales for common situations and also to go back and fix as many old images as possible. I'm the one who proposed the article field, incidentally, and it is a very good idea. If your image already had the article name indicated on the use rationale, the bot will not mess with your image. But if the rationale was missing the article name that makes it noncompliant and the bot would have tagged your image sooner or later if you hadn't fixed it in the template. None of this is new policy, it is only enforcing old policy, which the Board that runs Wikipedia has ordered us to do. I'm actually on the side against deletion of old images, which is very harmful to Wikipedia. But to avoid that, we have to make sure we get the old ones into shape, and that people aren't uploading new images that are just going to get deleted later. What we can't do is just ignore copyrights, or leave everything as is. There are 350,000+ copyrighted images on Wikipedia, and several thousand image uploads every day. Although many or most are legal, quite a few are copyright violations and quite a few more simply don't have data they require. Wikidemo 04:08, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Incidentally, the bot is not currently runing amok. It has run amok before (in my opinion) and what it's doing now is nothing commpared to its amok behavior. Just stick around and you'll see how upset people get when that happens (emoticon).Wikidemo 04:08, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
You don't have to convince me. I did all the work at an earlier time and did not complain about it, (save for a single edit summary back then, when I complained about someone playing with the template, although I didn't know it was you!). I actually extended the template use to pre-2007 articles because I like the new look as well as the more organised and uniform rationale it provides. The only thing was that when you introduced the article field the template started complaining that it was missing the name, even though the name appeared in another field, so I had to manually install the article pipe and name retroactively. That took some effort but I did not complain even then. I would have stayed clear of this had I not noticed this outburst. I took it as an indication of frustration of a user who seems eloquent but frustrated. What drove him to those expletives? I don't really know but in his outburst I detected a frustration with the system. I then understood that not all people take to this so calmly. I don't know what the answer is but maybe he has a point. Not in the way he expressed himself. That is always counterproductive and if it goes against other hard working users it is unjustified. But he may have a valid point in that he needs someone to retroactively fix the rationales for him. Maybe we can institute a task force to help copyright-stressed people instead of demanding of them that they do it. A group can retrofit these rationales for them so that they don't have to blow up like this. Outbursts should act as a call for action. They should serve as a red flag for corrective action. Not all people like or want to deal with legalities. A copyright template placement assistance task force could ease their frustration. The robots can then appear a bit tamer, or at least appear to more closely obey Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics instead of making their own at their whim as they roam unchecked through images and user talk pages wreaking havoc with automated and menacing messages; (place your own emoticon here). Dr.K. 05:37, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
I think Dr.K.'s task force idea is good. I have had Betacommand's talk page on my watchlist since I left messages there, and I think part of the problem is that it may appear to some that Betacommand is on some sort of private mission, when in fact it's important that the images comply with policy. Betacommand has to answer the same questions repeatedly, which I guess becomes tedious for him. He can't edit 24/7, so somebody in a different time zone to him might not get a speedy answer to their questions. Also, since Betacommand is not the only editor who adds {{di-no fair use rationale}} or {{di-disputed fair use rationale}} to images, perhaps if there was a centralised page where people could ask for help with fixing rationales, or even just vent a little without offending a particular editor, it might help editors learn about WP:NONFREE and reduce their frustration. I'm not an image expert, but I'd be willing to help out with it. Bláthnaid 14:12, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
I could help in such a project, although on a part-time basis. I have actually used the template for some images that were not mine such as posters from The Prisoner article etc. As far as the private mission of the robots etc., I know better than that, so I hope it is clear that I said these comments in jest. On the other hand the robots do possess a scare factor especially when making repeat visits on your talk page. In that case is it reasonable to think: am I being stalked by a robot? I know human image inspectors that were accused of the very same thing if they examined more than one image from a single user. This experience can be unnerving for some new users. Maybe we can set up a help desk type of task force dedicated to image problems with robots and help with template placement. Bye for now. Dr.K. 15:43, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
I got the joke :) and I think it reflects the way some editors feel, eg comments to Betacommand along the lines of this. Bláthnaid 18:54, 29 October 2007 (UTC)


Well, here's the deal, as I see it: if whoever has the time to run around tagging images as not fitting the template guideline doesn't have the time to fill out the template themselves with information which is self-evident, then I, who spend my time actually contributing material to Wikipedia, certainly do not. So, delete all my effing images, I won't trouble folks by posting any more. Meanwhile, Wikipedia to Pay Illustrators. (This also goes for the folks who manage to observe and officially note that an article lacks references, but cannot bring themselves to actually do a Google search as complex as "Irving Berlin" date of birth and actually fix the problem.) Gzuckier (talk) 19:34, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Tagging is always easier than Googling. They call it the path of least resistance. (Disclaimer: Previous comment does not apply to all tagging cases). Dr.K. (talk) 20:33, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Comments regarding image fixing tasks

Some comments:

  • A task force would be great. There is a lot of work to do. The two most obvious are chasing behind the bots to fix the images, and fixing the images that use the template but omit the article field.
  • Most of the discussion on this topic takes place at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content.
  • For reference there are bout 350,000 non-free images on Wikipedia, of which 150,000 to 170,000 do not comply with the image data requirements. Many of these images have been here a long time, some before the policy requirements were put in place. Most of these, say 60-90%, comply with the underlying policy on which images we can use, they simply don't have the data. Unless we do something to save them, all of these images will be deleted within the next few months. That is what makes people yell and scream, more than the inconvenience of having to comply when they upload a new image.
  • The Bot tags can all be found at Category:All disputed non-free images. There's a background of about 200-300 per day from by-hand nominations, but after the bots cranked up they're nominating a few thousand per day so the total count/backlog is probably something like 5,000 to 10,000. When all this dies down we'll go back to 200-300 per day, which is the approximate rate of people uploading images without the proper information (out of a total of 3,000 daily uploads, perhaps 500-1000 of which are non-free images).
  • Currently there are administrators who follow behind the bots after the required notice period and check the image. If it's been fixed to their satisfaction they remove the tag and move on. If it's not fixed, they usually delete the image. Few administrators are bothering to fix images that are saveable.
  • Some images can be fixed. Others are simply against policy in the first place, copyright violations, or there's no way you can find the information without knowing where the image came from. If you save an image, remove the tag. If you can't, you should leave a conspicuous note that you tried but couldn't, or a message to someone else. That way the next person doesn't duplicate your efforts. It can also be a signal to the deleting administrator that they can go ahead and delete the image.
  • There would have to be an organized way for people to divide up work. Otherwise everyone is going to be working on the 0000 to 99999 group at the same time and nobody will ever get to the letter A, much less Z. Maybe some kind of central talk page where people can "check in" and "check out" chunks of images. You could leave a note saying "I'm working on P through R of the October 27 images" and that would let people know to work somewhere else.
  • For the template / article field issue, there are almost 30,000 images you can find at Category:Non-free images lacking article backlink. For nearly all you can find the article name, either somewhere else on the page (just cut and paste!), or more likely, nowhere on the image page but it's in the "file links" at the page bottom. In that case you should click on the link to verify that the rationale makes sense for that particular use, and then add the article name. In the rare case where there's some confusion, multiple article uses, or some other obvious problem you can fix that too.

Regarding the proposal to change use rationale requirements

Regarding the upcoming changes.

  • A little while ago a proposal was made and accepted (see User:CBM/NFCC_Proposal) to change the WP:NFCC#10(c) use rationale to allow pre-written templated rationales for the most obvious common cases - album covers, book covers, logos, and pictures of artwork. Between them that's about half of the non-free images. Doing this requires making some technical changes to the way the copyright tags (10a) and statement of image source (10b) are done. Now we're working on the templates.
  • You can see an early, kludgy, attempt I made to automate the process. template:logo fur for logos (about 1000 in use) and template:album cover fur for album covers (about 1,500). The deletion bots know about these and leave them alone, just like the main template. The final version will work completely differently but if you can figure out these two you can use them now.
  • To get the proposal implemented five things have to happen in sequence. 1) We have to finish designing the image data requirements, templates, messages, use rationales, etc, then get final consensus approval - the earlier approval was an approval in principle. 2) We have to enact a transition to the new format. The bots, upload procedures, and instructions have to be modified, and we have to get the word out. Right now we're targeting 1/1/08. 3) We need to rescue as many old noncompliant images as we can in an organized way. 150,000 or more of them, as I said above. 4) We may or may not want to upgrade old compliant images to the new format for consistency. 5) Any noncompliant old images that we can't or don't fix are subject to getting deleted, the latest by next spring.
  • The new format will make it a lot easier to comply with the image policy when uploading new images, easier for the bots to detect noncompliance, and also easier to fix old images. If you get fast at it, you can currently fix 30-50 an hour using a browser to fix images using template:Non-free use rationale. If and when the new templates are in place you can probably fix 120-150 images an hour to the new standards using an editing tool.

Hope this info is useful. Feel free to ask questions here or on my talk page Wikidemo 19:45, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Not only useful. It's a how-to manual. I'll try to absorb it as soon I get the chance. Great work. Thanks. But I think the first priority of a task force should be dealing with frustrated or anxious users that don't want to, or can't, re-tag their images. The task force would then help them do it on a per request basis not as a general mopping up operation, (even though that is worthy as well). Dr.K. 20:06, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks from me also, Wikidemo, and kudos to you and the other editors who are working on the templates. Presently, I can add rationales to about 35-50 images in an hour, and being able to speed things up would be great. A re-tagging taskforce is sorely needed so that things like this don't happen. However, like Dr.K. I'm also concerned about the stress that some editors experience when they have problems with their image uploads. Perhaps a direct link to Wikipedia:Media copyright questions in the {{di-no fair use rationale}} and {{di-disputed fair use rationale}} templates? Or if there was a template similar to {{Helpme}} that an editor could add to their talk page or the image page? Maybe a way for new image uploaders to ask if someone could double-check their uploads before they get tagged by a bot? Part of the problem I think is that editors might not know that they have done anything wrong until their image ends up in CAT:SPEEDY, and proposed deletion can put people on the defensive even if the problem is easily fixed. Bláthnaid 18:54, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
Just so you know, given the background and based on the Steve_Eifert example (hundreds of images uploaded 2 years ago by editor who is now mostly inactive, deleted wily-nilly on 2-7 day notice) I am going to propose by bold change to WP:CSD formalizing our de-facto temporary suspension of deletions for images loaded before 1/1/07. I'll announce that here, on WP:NONFREE, and on CSD (where the discussion will inevitably take place) as soon as I do it. If you have any other strong examples of recent large-scale deletions of old images, I would appreciate knowing about it so we can keep an eye on it and also use it in discussion. Onesies and twosies are an annoyance and lead to cursing; hundreds of old images all at the same time, times dozens of times this seems to be happening simultaneously, is a significant problem we need to deal with lest our efforts to clean up the images falls apart. Wikidemo 20:38, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
The idea of Blathnaid for a help tag is great and along the lines of my original proposal. Kudos to Wikidemo as well for his proposed moratorium on large scale deletions. Let me know how I can support both ideas. And since we are on the subject, is there any way to adjust the bot reaction time before they put a deletion notice and a related talk page notice on newly uploade pages? I uploaded a few logos recently and before I had the chance to construct a fair use rationale the bot had tagged the image within 2 minutes and spammed my talk page at the same time as in here. Could we make it wait a few more minutes? Dr.K. 21:21, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
This anonymous editor tagged a lot of images for deletion on 22 October. Some of the images were uploaded by User:Humus sapiens as far back as 2004. Humus sapiens is apparently on a wikibreak, and no notice of the images being tagged was added to his/her userpage or the talk pages of the articles the images were on. I've added rationales to some of the images, but they are due for deletion in a few hours and I don't have time to catch them all. Another example I've come across is the talk page of User:Jtdirl. There are more examples I've come across, so I'll dig through my contributions and provide some more tomorrow. Bláthnaid 21:55, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. It would be useful to keep track of mass taggings in one central place. I'll give that some thought. Well, as per my changes to CSD none of the post-2007 images are deletable, but I doubt people will get the message quickly and there's a chance people will revert it and it won't stick. To be clear, the "moratorium" is a temporary stay on deleting old images while we try to fix them. In the end they will all have to be either fixed or deleted, we just need more time to do it in an orderly way that gives us a chance to save them first. New images are still subject to tagging and deletion as before, no immediate change there. 2 minutes seems awfully fast. I noticed that. At least it's better than 3 months, which means you might be off line, have uploaded another two dozen before realizing the bot would reject them, and miss the notice and come back after a short wikibreak to find them all deleted. Instant feedback is good, but 5-10 minutes would be better because it gives you a chance to finish what you're doing before the bot points the finger. I would just ask the bot owner if they could institute a little buffer - politely please, because they get a lot of flak and tend to tune out when a message starts with an accusation. You can help by participating in the project mentioned above and by a task force to save images. If you care to discuss the moratorium, I can't tell you to support it because that would be canvassing, but I'll provide the link to that in a subsection below.Wikidemo 21:59, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for all the info as well as the input about bot timing. I'll ask the owner and don't worry, even though spammed a few times I think I understand bots well enough not to get upset, not by a long shot. I think at this stage of their development they are just trying to say hi. Dr.K. 22:33, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Formalizing temporary suspension of I6 and I7 for legacy images

Per the above (and loosely cross-posed from NFCC), I have updated WP:CSD and started a discussion on its talk page here to formalize the de facto reached at NFCC to focus image tagging and deletions on the 2007 images while we put in place our project to update the image data requirements and save the old images. I'd encourage people to keep the discussion in one place - probably over at CSD. Wikidemo 21:59, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Great idea and even better action. Kudos. Dr.K. 22:33, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
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